


Run the Gauntlet

by CoraxAviary



Series: Sister-in-Arms [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, Canon-Typical Violence, Ensemble Cast, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/M, I'm just dumb sorry it's a serious fic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period Typical Attitudes, Please Heed That Warning, Slow Burn, World War II, almost gen in fact, extremely slow, i'm sorry i guess I'm just long-winded, so much angst oh my gosh, these tags don't accurately represent the tone of the fic, why use few word when many do trick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 63,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26012980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoraxAviary/pseuds/CoraxAviary
Summary: With America joining World War II, and all the men going off overseas, June could think of no better honor than serving her country by fighting for the Allies on the European front.Dropping out of planes and taking back western Europe was the original plan. But first, June has to weather training, earn the respect of the company, and withstand their abrasive and abusive CO. June has to fight for equal treatment and prove that she belongs in the Army. This war isn't just about bull's-eyeing Jerries.All events leading up to the Day of Days, from June’s arrival, tests of fortitude, withstanding Sobel, to earning her Jump Wings. Ends on the Upottery Base, June 5. Description may change as more chapters are written. First book in a three-book series. Updates weekly. Intended as historical fiction heavily borrowing from the Band of Brothers storyline.[Not abandoned / on short hiatus]
Relationships: Canon Character/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Sister-in-Arms [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888060
Comments: 71
Kudos: 70





	1. Toccoa, GA

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I respect and honor the real veterans of WWII and all other wars. The people and events depicted in my fic are based on the HBO show Band of Brothers. None of this is meant to imply or suggest anything about the real events of the real veterans' lives.

June Hazel Diedtrich stood at the depot in Toccoa, Georgia, wondering how she’d gotten there so soon.

Cars rushed by; buses passed and young men crowded the corners of the plaza, supply trucks being loaded and unloaded. More than a few men in uniform were about the area, their jackets and pants creased and tucked, garrison caps cocked at a slight angle. The town was rushed, hot, and dusty, but bursting at the seams with a dynamic energy: the energy of hope, and dually the uncomfortable undercurrent of lingering expectation. 

Most of the men would eventually ship out. Maybe it would be months, or even years. But it was going to happen, and with combat came the unavoidable reality of pain and death that were the bounty of war. 

June gripped the handles of her suitcase tighter, eyeing the military men, most her age or only slightly older. They looked energetic and diligent. Spirits were high. And yet the feeling of a held breath remained.

Such was the nature of a nation at war. The Japanese had made sure of that. 

June took a deep breath of the Southern air, the dry smell of red dust drifting from the ground. A few pigeons pecked errantly at the dirt, and some flock birds chittered overhead from rooftop to rooftop. A car horn honked; someone shouted in return. Boxes and crates knocked together.

She craned her head, looking for a taxi. She didn’t expect many: Toccoa was a sort of backwater area except for the military presence that brought in a lot of soldiers and trucked-in supplies. She’d have to wait for the bus.

Some other women milled about. June figured at least some of them might know the bus schedule, and she approached one woman dressed similarly to her – in a light cotton shirt and a knee-length skirt – and cleared her throat. 

“Excuse me, would you happen to know the bus schedule?” June asked, already feeling lost in the new environment. 

The other woman turned around. She was blonde, tall, and her red lips curved into a pleasant expression. 

“Sure. There’s a bus coming in a few minutes, heading out to the base,” she said with a mildly Southern twang. “Where are you headed?”

June exhaled, relieved that there was a bus. “I’m trying to get to the base, too.” 

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, um…” she trailed off. 

“June. June Diedtrich,” June supplied. 

“Nice to meet you, June. I’m Bea,” she responded cheerily. 

“Likewise,” June said, adjusting her sliding grip on her suitcase handle as her palms started to sweat in the hot Georgia air. 

“You know, it’s always nice to see a new face around here,” Bea said, smoothing down a piece of hair that had come free from its pin. “Sometimes it gets a little old seeing the same few people.” She glanced quickly at June, and added, “Working up at the base is nice and rewarding, because we’re helping the war effort. Never bad work, I’ll assure you.”

June breathed a brief laugh. “I’m sure it’s that way,” she said, not sure how to relate to the woman who most likely assumed June was there for secretary work. “Good all the same.”

“I wouldn’t want to scare you off on your first day,” Bea said. “Typing isn’t bad overall.”

June watched Bea’s face, careful not to encourage any new questions about her position. She was sure it was coming, though, and she prepared for how to answer inquiries about the place she was stationed. Bea was going to ask sooner or later. 

“Are you a typist?” Bea asked innocently, and June straightened, breathing deeply. 

“No, I’m not,” she said, not sure how to respond. “I’m not working in the office.”

Bea looked at her curiously. “Nurse? I didn’t take you for the nursing type, but I suppose we could take on more nurses. The men are always getting injured out there, God knows how.”

June looked at Bea, careful not to interrupt, trying to find a way to explain that no, she was not going to be a nurse. She was not going to shuttle papers, pound a typewriter, or drive jeeps – half of which women were rarely permitted to do. She would not be a WAC or a WASP or a WAVES woman or another ridiculous acronym, though God knew they were needed too.

Bea kept talking, and June took that as a good sign. 

“... last week, another one came in with a broken leg. And that was after he’d been denying that he needed to get it fixed, can you believe it? The nurses down at the aid station must get at least three sprained ankles a day, the way it would seem.” June understood then that Bea was an avid talker. “There ain’t much scrapping, between the boys, you know, but there are some mysterious injuries that the nurses gotta figure out. Gosh, how does a guy get all those bruises?” she finished, looking to June for some kind of acknowledgement. 

June coughed into her sleeve hollowly, to stall for time, and then got out a weak, “I wouldn’t know.” Which wasn’t exactly true because James taught her to sock a guy in the eye – and knee a guy in the balls – but June didn’t know a broken arm from a dislocated elbow. “I’m not a nurse,” she said.

“Oh, then where are you? Do you drive?” Bea asked, clearly confused. “Have you not been assigned yet? Because then I’d think you’d just be a typist like me,” she said nonchalantly. She picked a fold out of her skirt and let it fall back against her legs. “Do you know yet?” she asked, blue eyes searching June’s face.

“I’m―” June started, when the bus pulled in, in front of the depot. She glanced at Bea. “It’s complicated.”

“I can handle complicated,” she said brightly. “My dad is a biology professor down at Emory.” The bus came and the women began filing inside one at a time. “I mean, he talks about very complicated things,” she said, connecting her anecdote to the conversation. “You can tell me once we’re seated.”

June stood in line with Bea, trying to come up with a way to explain. Despite her preparation for Toccoa, both mentally and physically, June somehow neglected to prepare a predetermined statement on why she was there. She’d glossed over it, probably assuming that she’d just be inducted into the barracks fairly quickly without much prelude. With the road to Toccoa looming in front of her, June was forced to reconsider how optimistic that thought had been. 

She moved through the bus silently, sitting down mutely beside Bea, and when all the women were on, the bus started to drive down the road. June felt more than a few curious looks to her, the newcomer. 

“Well,” June started. Bea looked at her expectantly. “It’s hard to explain,” she said, betraying a little frustration on her face. 

“Aw, honey, are you trying to get a job near a husband or something? I hadn’t pegged you for the already-married type, but with a face like that, I’d be married outta school too,” Bea said.

“I’m here to join the Army,” June said quietly. 

Bea looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “Sorry, girl, but the Women’s Army Corps doesn’t have much of a presence at camp, if that’s what you’re looking for.” Bea shifted, placing her bag on her lap. “You sure you’re in the right place?”

June pressed her lips together. “Mm, no. Not the WAC. The Army. The Paratroopers, to be exact.” The truth, she found, was best in some situations.

Bea squinted, trying to make sense of the statement. “You’re stationed with the Paratroopers? What, writing papers?” She half-laughed, expecting something out of June. 

June cringed internally. “No, I’m going to be billeted with the men, training. Basic training. At least, that’s the plan. After that, I’m trying to become a combat paratrooper.” It was hard for June to say at this point for some reason, but she pushed out the words with diligence, as if putting them out into the world for the first time would make them more true. Her future had never seemed more remote, though. She wished she could explain more, but the words didn't exist. It was a simple statement. “It’s the plan,” she ended, not knowing what else to say. One shoulder lifted in a shrug.

Bea blinked at her, and leaned back in her seat with eyebrows knitted together for a few long seconds. 

June looked concernedly at Bea, trying to gauge her reaction. _Damn_ , if everyone reacted this way, June was going to have a hard year. Even worse, June realized, if she had this hard of a time telling people why she was here, it would be even harder than she expected. 

Pale grass blurred under the blue sky outside the windows. Sparse fences passed by, and then the rare supply truck or car. A tree appeared every moment or two, and June watched it all flow together after some time trying to clamp onto the image of the clouds or the birds. It was better to just watch from afar and see the colors blend.

“So, you want to do a man’s job?” Bea said slowly. 

June nodded.

Bea failed to say something multiple times, starting and stopping before settling on a phrase. “Why?” she got out. 

June saw confusion in Bea’s eyes. She searched for judgement, but there was none yet, mercifully so. 

“I want to make something of myself.”

That was what June’s father and younger brother had said when she was admitted into West Point. She was making something of herself, they’d said, and June took the phrase to heart. She was doing it alone, herself, and for her only. It turned into a mantra. She’d made something of herself yet: a girl from an apartment above a small grocery, smack-dab in the middle of the middle class, vying for a spot among the political and the academia. This time, she was aiming for a spot that many men didn’t even achieve. The paratroopers had one of the highest wash-out rates in the nation. She’d make it, just like she made it to West Point and out in three years. She’d do it, and make something of herself.

She’d do it, and maybe die trying.

Bea shifted somewhat uncomfortably, fiddling with her hands in her lap. June looked out the window, not as fidgety as before she’d explained, but still pulling at her fingers incessantly. 

“Why didn’t you want to be a WAC? It’s safer. As a woman, you know, you should be doing more appropriate things. The men fight. And we do our own fighting away from the front lines, but it’s just not holding a gun.” Bea’s voice was starting to rise in indignation.

June looked down, then decided to straighten and face Bea. This was June’s decision, and it had been approved by the military. She was going regardless of what Bea thought.

“How is this even possible?” spluttered Bea, in disbelief. “Who let you? And why do you feel the need to–to do something like this?”

June sighed, fearing the reaction. “I sent correspondences to the military base and some other branches. I got support from my local politicians. I suppose the West Point degree didn’t hurt,” she said, trying for some levity. 

Bea still looked concerned and scandalized. “West Point? You don’t mean–” Bea looked intently at June’s face. “You don’t mean you’re one of _them_?”

“The graduates this year?” June offered, neutrally.

Bea nodded, eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, I graduated with the class of ‘42. This month of June, actually.”

Bea wore the same expression on her face, half confused and half dismayed. June told herself that minds changed slowly. People like Bea were in the majority. Most Americans found any challenge to their status-quo unbearable. She was just like June’s mother when she’d been admitted.

And because Mom was against it, so was Sharon.

June had a very distinct memory of Sharon trying to talk her out of it.

“Mom doesn’t like it, you know,” she’d said, a frown on her face. “She says it’s ridiculous. Just go to University of California or something. You wouldn’t even have to go that far.” 

June told herself that she’d consider Cal. Her family had even visited – many of the young people from their area went there and it seemed like a natural progression for a girl like June. She didn’t like it – not because of the area or the attitude emanating from the school, but because for some reason, she’d already had her heart set on West Point. Assuming she got in. 

When June left for West Point, Mom cried and Sharon grudgingly gave her a hug. She left with a pit in her stomach. Leaving for Toccoa had created a similar reaction. 

“Stay safe,” her mother had said, probably hoping Toccoa would refuse June from the start, despite their promise in the letter to consider June’s military-style education. Sharon probably thought June would wash out. It was an elite division with high drop-out rates, after all. Paratroopers.

Paratroopers. The word was unfamiliar and sounded wrong. She figured the concept of dropping from the sky was in itself, wrong. Humans had figured out how to fly close to the sun and now they were falling voluntarily, too. 

June wasn’t really sure she could do it. This wasn’t West Point, where intellectual and memorization skills could supplement your success if your other scores were lacking. This was the Army. It was physical. It was about survival and combat. She couldn’t just be there, passive, and study at night to play catch-up. She had to take her future into her own hands, once again. 

It didn’t matter if she thought she could do it. It only mattered if she did it. 

And here she was, having a hard time explaining her situation to an amateur typist, God forbid her struggle when she got up to base.

June checked her watch. They were going to get there soon. 

Bea looked into June’s eyes suddenly. “I knew I saw you somewhere else. The newspapers…” she muttered, looking as if she didn’t know what else to say despite being full of questions. 

“I know it would be a lot less audacious of me to just stay on the home front.” June said, waiting for the storm. “That’s what people have already told me. You wouldn’t be the first.”

Bea furrowed her eyebrows again, taking in the grass and trees out the window. “No,” she said quietly, suddenly uncharacteristic. “No, I won’t say that.” She sat in silence for a while, and something came up on the horizon: a peaked hill, poking up from the trees and bushes, ringed with clouds and sitting against a blue sky. “Times are changing,” she said, shifting to look once again back at June. “You seem like a nice girl. I don’t think you’ll make it. You’ll drop out in a week or two, tops,” she said, shrugging, then paused. “But in the instance that you somehow make it, you’ll have done a great thing, female or not.”

June didn’t know what to say. No one had said anything like that to her. Be it with wonder or disgust, people who knew her story would always look at her with a sort of alien strangeness.

The bus was entering the base, and gates loomed in front of them. Wooden structures started to appear along the path, and men became more and more common along the path. The bus finally broke through the fading trees and the base was spread out before them: half paved, half dirt, with wood and brush and trucks everywhere. And the sheer volume of young men, all in uniform, all making their way to a specific destination. Each soldier here was here to train. 

June intended to become just like the men.

She’d almost forgotten about Bea beside her, and there was a brief touch on June’s hand as Bea got up to walk towards the front of the bus. 

“Wait,” June said. Bea turned around, expression unreadable. June couldn’t figure out whether Bea had concluded that she disliked her, but it didn’t matter. “I’ll see you,” she decided to say, the statement impersonal but not too remote, because in the back of her mind, June genuinely hoped she’d see Bea around base. She’d soon have no friends and have to start all over.

Bea gave her a half-smile. “You’ll know where to find me.”

And with that, June was the last woman on the bus. She made her way out in a daze, memorizing the leather of the seats with her fingers as she stepped out into the hot sun, the sounds of the base flowing over her. 

June stared up at the sky, trying to gather her thoughts. She was here to be like the other men. A girl named June couldn’t make this trip to the finish, unscathed. But maybe a soldier named Diedtrich could. 

She was here to fight, to learn to kill the enemy – to advance the mission of democracy throughout the quickly darkening age. The task of the U.S. Army was something huge and something glorious. 

If June’s nation was embarking on the greatest mission of faith and attrition on God’s good world, she wanted in. She wanted in, bad.

And here she was, with the hardest part far ahead.

♤

She found herself gawking at the place. The other women scattered quickly after leaving the bus, reporting for their jobs in various directions. June was left standing in the dust, taking in the huge hill rising above the camp, drowning in blue sky and flanked by hastily built wooden buildings.

A few groups of men – platoons – jogged past, running around the base. The pop-bang of rifle fire drifted distantly from somewhere to June’s north. Some yelling voices floated over the din of engines and footsteps.

A man came walking briskly out from a corner of one of the offices, in his service greens. He immediately spotted June and made a beeline towards her, dodging a passing truck. He came closer, and June noted the triple chevron on his shoulder and kept a smile to herself, preparation already paying off. _Sergeant_ , she thought. He was dark blonde, of medium build, and tall. As he arrived in front of her, he slowed.

“Sergeant John Coates,” he said, extending a hand to her. June took it and gave a firm handshake. 

After a moment of indecision, June decided in a beat to introduce herself the civilian way. “June Diedtrich, sir,” she said with a smile. 

He nodded, already leaning around to take June’s suitcase. She pulled away. “That’s not necessary, but thank you,” she said hastily.

“Alright,” he said brightly, not looking put off. “I’m going to take you to Colonel Sink.” He turned away, starting up a cement path pointing away from the road.

June hauled her suitcase along, switching hands, and followed quickly after the Sergeant. Her heels clacked noticeably against the ground as she picked up speed in comparison to Coates’s boots. They were jump boots: the pride of parachutists and the envy of non-paratrooper infantrymen. June tore her eyes from Coates’s uniform when he spoke, suddenly aware that she was staring.

“So, you’re here to join the Army,” Coates commented, from a few paces ahead. June blinked in surprise. She figured no one would know other than Sink and some upper-division ranking officers. There was no way to tell, except for her suitcase, which wasn’t really an obvious indicator in itself. 

“Yes, I am, sir,” June said. 

“Interesting thing, a woman wanting to fight and all,” he said, voice curiously devoid of judgement. People always had to comment on the idea, and June expected nothing less of Coates, even if he seemed courteous at first glance.

“I think so, sir,” she responded cautiously, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It always did. People always had something to say about her outlandish ideas.

The two were passed by another jogging platoon in silence. June felt the weight of their curious stares, probably sizing her up as another new nurse or secretary to try and take out to the movies. 

More buildings passed. June looked out over the field to her right, a large expanse of flat green grass, which had a primitive track lining the perimeter, and forest beyond that, fading into a gradient of thin trees and ground cover. There were rows upon rows of barracks between her and the field – wooden row houses, long and narrow with square windows and thin walls. Some of them were covered with tarp fittings over the roofs and sides. June thought of winter in those poorly-insulated boxes and wondered how the men stayed warm. 

“Look, I just want to tell you one thing before you go in,” Coates said suddenly, rounding a corner and facing her. June straightened again. “Colonel Sink may have let you in, but he’s not a _nice_ man,” Coates said, looking slightly down at June, who was a good deal shorter. His tone was not harsh, but it seemed to be genuinely honest. “You’re here for a unique reason. I know that you are aware you will have to prove yourself more than any other man here.”

June looked seriously at him. “I know, sir. You have no idea how well I know.” She immediately reconsidered her statement. Was it too disrespectful? She searched his face. He didn’t look particularly upset. She told herself not to push it.

He nodded, looking at her sidelong without malice. “You will know if you didn’t before,” he said lowly. “I don’t envy your position, Private.”

June looked up, startled. This was the first time she’d been acknowledged as a military person, let alone a hopeful. 

_Private Diedtrich_. She would have smiled to herself if not for a wave of overwhelming nervousness as she looked at the door that would lead to Sink. Coates broke eye contact and rose back up to full height. 

“Colonel Sink is in here,” he said, holding open a door and following June into the building. 

Inside, the air was cooler, but still warm. A narrow hallway led down the building to the left, and office doors – some shut, some open – punctuated the wood wall every few feet. June stepped aside to let Coates pass, and she followed him down the corridor to the last door on the right. Coates knocked. 

“Come in,” a voice drifted out from the room. Coates nudged open the door and held it open for June, who slipped past him into Colonel Sink’s office.

The office was filled with light from the window behind Sink, who rose from his chair at the sight of June entering the office. June heard the shift of fabric behind her as Coates stood at attention, and after another brief moment of panicked debate, she too snapped her heels together and raised her right arm in salute, feeling a little strange doing it in her civilian clothing: skirt, lipstick, pin curls, and all.

The Colonel looked at June for a few seconds with an unreadable look, then back at Coates. 

“As you were,” he said in a strong, slightly nasal voice. He had gray hair and a composed mannerism. 

June heard Coates’s uniform shift again, and a half-second later, she relaxed her arm, not wanting to be found incompetent. She was feeling out-of-place already. Knowing how to salute and drill and address officers in the book was different than when the Colonel of Camp Toccoa was standing right in front of her. 

Would he offer his hand for shaking? Was she supposed to take it and shake once or twice? Thankfully, Sink didn’t offer a handshake, but instead dismissed Coates with a brief wave. 

“Sergeant Coates, please wait outside,” he said, and then turning to June, he pointed to a chair in front of the desk. “Have a seat, young lady,” he said, and June obediently pulled out the chair and sat down, setting her suitcase down next to her. The thought that Sink hadn’t called her _Private_ briefly flashed through her mind, but June’s thoughts were so jumbled that she pushed the useless observation out of her mind and tried to breathe deeply to calm down her rapidly beating heart.

Sink sat down in his chair across from June and folded his hands, looking at her, the beams of noontime sun slatting through the blinds in the window and giving Sink a backlit glow. June met his eyes straight on, challenging him to make any assumptions before he talked to her first. 

This was the man to impress. If anyone, it was Sink. He could throw her out of the camp right then if he wanted to. June was no Congressman’s daughter, no relative of a high-ranking official. Sink had the right to deny her requests immediately without repercussions, and they both knew. 

Yet Sink had been the one – the only one – to answer June’s request, asking her to come on base to begin training on the eighteenth of September. That had to mean he had some sort of hope for her when the others didn’t. It had to. Right?

Sink’s letter promised her a shot. It might have been a shot in the dark, but June took it.

“June Diedtrich. We finally meet,” Sink said, leaning back in his chair. 

June nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said steadily. Sink laughed, probably at her stiffness, or maybe at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. 

“Well, let’s get into it,” he said with an air of business, turning to a few papers on his desk and laying one on top of another. He had a particular habit of enunciating syllables and drawing them out in a Carolina accent. It reminded June of her grandfather, though she wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to make that comparison.

“In your letter you stated that you specifically wanted to join the Army. Not the WACs, or other female divisions,” Sink said, looking fleetingly at the mentioned letter and back at June. “You do realize how strange and frankly abstract an idea like this is, June?”

June kept her face stoic, but she felt a cold flash of nervousness. “Yes, sir.”

Sink scanned the rest of the letter and put it back down. “Your request has been approved by the top brass, as you already know,” he said, drumming a finger on the table and leaning back once more. “This is something that has never happened. Not once in the history of the United States Armed Forces has a female actually entered front-line combat,” Sink said with an air of finality.

She nodded, not knowing what else to say. A growing fearful anticipation of rejection grew in her mind, and she shifted in the chair uncomfortably. She reasoned with herself: why would Sink kick her out now? She’d taken a train all the way from California to get here. Sink seemed to be a man of practicality. She told herself she was being ridiculous by having anything to fear, but her own voice of logic was drowned out by anxiety.

Their correspondence had been constant, but June still knew nothing was ever concrete with such a tenuous plan relying on scant approval. Was Sink preparing to drop her right here and now? Was that why he’d kept Coates outside the office, so she could be driven back into town? June’s heart sank, even though she knew in her mind that she’d been approved to this position. 

“You’re a high school valedictorian, West Point graduate, and women’s distance running champion. You have political contacts all over the country in top positions, a secure home in San Francisco, and job prospects open everywhere because of your degree. You’re smart. You’re also a woman. You have the option,” Sink said, clearing his throat and leaning forward, “of completely ignoring the war as someone who will not be affected by any possible future drafts. In fact, there will be more jobs for you when men start draining out of the country by the millions.”

June watched his face, trying to follow his logic. 

“So, when I ask this, answer me honestly, because I want to know,” he said. “Why are you here?”

Bea had asked June the same thing on the bus but curiously, it seemed different when the words were coming from the mouth of a distinguished Colonel, sitting here with June’s fate in his hands. She twisted a finger in her lap and stopped herself, knowing Sink could see.

“You could be in danger if you wanted, Diedtrich,” Sink said. “You could fly a plane. You could make yourself useful by manufacturing artillery shells.” He snorted. “Hell, you could even haul ass to Europe and do some fighting yourself without being–” he waved an arm around, one side of his mouth lifting below his moustache in a scowl, “restricted by the organization of the U.S. Army. God knows we haven’t been as welcoming as some Holland revolutionaries could be on the other side of the world.”

June pressed her lips together, thinking. “I’m not bilingual, sir,” she started, and Sink laughed for a moment, his stony exterior breaking for just that second. “I don’t have a pilot's license. I don’t want to work in a factory, sir,” she forged on, wondering if her use of _sir_ was too frequent. No matter – it was better to sprinkle in too many than too few. “I feel love for my country, this great nation I was born into. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. And if I am daring enough to count myself to be among the free and the brave, then I intend to take up arms and fight for it too.” 

Colonel Sink had asked _why_. Why was she here? She paused just for a few seconds. 

“And if not for Europe or the free people of the Pacific, I want to fight for my country. The United States of America.”

Sink looked down at the papers without reading them, up at the ceiling, and then back at June, exhaling. Then he nodded. “That’s exactly why every other man is here,” he said. “I’m glad you feel so strongly about our country. But I’ll ask you this.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Are you prepared to watch your comrades die? To have the cloud of death and blood all around you as you pack yourself into trenches, waiting for the artillery to tear some poor boy’s arm off? To be hit by the blood and guts of the man next to you, deafened by gunfire and blinded by flares?”

June swallowed, trying to picture the carnage, knowing it was a reality that was all too near, men torn limb from limb just across the sea.

“The taste of ash and metal doesn’t leave your mouth. And if you yourself get hit in battle, sometimes it’s a mercy to not have to watch your brothers bleed out in front of you or get their helmet shot through with some German machine gun,” Sink concluded. “If you ever get through the training and somehow make it into battle, can your female mind and soul bear it?”

June stared into the distance, trying to imagine it – a familiar mental choreography she’d replayed again and again for months, trying to picture the mud and screams and rivers of red. She’d watched war films when she could, but she had a premonition the worst was never shown. She’d known veterans from the Great War, hollow and haggard, missing limbs or parts of their skin or sections of their face. Burns. Amputations. Bullet wounds. Broken arms that never healed. Big scars that were never named, but pointed to some greater wound inside their soul. Empty eyes.

June hoped she’d never get to that point. Empty-eyed was the worst that you could become.

“I know it, sir,” June said, knowing it was a woeful lie. “In the event that I am eventually deployed overseas, I am prepared for it.”

Sink grimaced. “You will never be prepared. You do not know. But I have faith that you are willing to learn what it takes to become a brother-in-arms.” He paused. “Sister-in-arms.”

June nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You are not one of them yet,” Sink said, pointing over his shoulder into the window, framing a scene of men doing drills, running, and standing at attention. “You may never be one of them. You have to make them understand, Diedtrich. You must make them. No one else will do it for you.” A brief shake of his head. “But the battle for now is not to make friends. You will earn their respect by your actions, your fortitude, and your resilience, something each man must do. And now you are a woman attempting the same thing. If they accept you,” he said, “and that is a big _if_ , you will do it by surviving Toccoa. There is no shortcut. You either shape up or wash out, same as the others, West Point degree be damned.”

June’s eyes narrowed slightly, hating that her degree was probably going to be held over her the whole time she was here, if she lasted longer than a few days. She hated being told about her own education, because she was reminded of how she’d been given exceptions that made her class graduate in three short years. 

If she ever earned something, it would be her place in the Paratroopers.

“I cannot stress this enough, Diedtrich,” Sink said. “You must earn this. The Army men will not be easily convinced of your competence unless you demonstrate it.”

June nodded firmly, face hardening. “I will try my best, sir.”

Colonel Sink looked as if he was going to try to say something else, but then decided against it. “Well, Private Diedtrich, I wish you the best, but that’s all I can do. Welcome to U.S. Army training,” he said, rising from his chair. “The Basic Training exam is in a few weeks. I’ll see you then.”

June stood up quickly too, and Sink offered a hand for a shake. June gave him her firmest handshake, and Sink nodded at her. 

“Survive this, and you make history,” Sink said, face serious.

June felt the unsaid implication hang in the air. 

_Fail, and you’re just another drop-out_.

June didn’t intend to fail. She’d weather this, just like she had weathered her other obstacles. This time, the obstacle was called Toccoa. And maybe – just maybe – she’d eventually face down the forces of Europe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first fic I've ever posted to Ao3, despite being a longtime lurker. This story was born out of my wish that there were more good fem oc fics that were long and (somewhat) realistic. I enjoy a good journey of attrition, and I hope you all do, too. I will establish a more steady upload schedule once I finish my first draft of Run the Gauntlet.
> 
> Additionally, romance is suggested in this book, but never acted upon. Official relationship subplots will begin in the next book.


	2. The Camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June gets situated in her billet, and runs into some new faces. It’s not very civil.

As June stepped out of the office and back into the main corridor, she breathed deeply, feeling some new feeling settle over her. The weight of responsibility. She was in, and the burden was heavy. But she would make it. She had to. 

“Private Diedtrich,” Coates said. “I’m to show you around the place, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” June said. 

He gave her a vague smile, and led the way out of the building, holding the door for her as she came out, back into the hot sun and into the camp.

It was strange to be given a tour. She was sure none of the other men received an introduction to the place when they arrived, but she knew she was again being given an exception despite Sink’s promise to the contrary. She sighed, following Coates down a concrete path deeper into the camp. _This isn’t an exception_ , she told herself. _It gives me no advantage over the other men_. 

Coates snuck a glance behind himself as he walked, making sure June wasn’t trailing too far behind. She sped up a little, suitcase swinging against her knees, and she stubbornly held it a little out to the side, as if proving to herself that her upper-arm strength was sufficient for the training ahead. She knew it wasn’t. Her strength was in her legs, not her arms. She took a moment to curse her female anatomy, eyeing the biceps of a platoon jogging by in training shirts and shorts. 

June caught up, thinking all the while about the training. Her record of strength was both mental and physical – something she was proud of – but she’d still be at a disadvantage training with male criteria. She’d trained relentlessly in the months leading up to her departure to Toccoa, and still she couldn’t sustain more than seven or so pull-ups. It was significant, but not for Army training. She was already fitter than ever, yet she felt dismally behind.

Her only advantage, possibly, was her history of running. She was a long-distance runner in high school, and nabbed herself a shiny silver medal in senior year for the 10,000-meter district race. At West Point, she hit her best times, beating a few of the men who happened to be on the track at the same time before realizing just how much they hated being outran by women. The men did a lot of running, June observed, seeing yet another platoon run by.

Someone whistled, and June whirled around, looking for the perpetrator. The platoon was already past, but not without the fading sound of a few laughs from other men. June silently watched their retreating backs, clenching her teeth. 

Coates’s eyes flicked to the passing group momentarily, and he turned around to continue walking. June switched the suitcase to her other hand and followed, clacking in her heels down the path. Maybe it was a mistake to come for her first day in a skirt and lipstick. Would the men respect her if they’d seen her before with a full face of makeup? 

Coates gestured in the direction of a whitewashed building with a few windows to the right. 

“That’s the secretary’s office, where most of the women are on base,” he said. “You’ll use the facilities there.”

One woman was leaning against the doorframe, smoking. She silently watched June and Coates pass, tapping cigarette ash into the dirt.

“There’s a bathroom and showers behind the office,” Coates said.

June wasn’t upset, because what other alternative was there? She couldn’t shower with the men or use their latrine. June disliked her options, looking at the distance between the barracks and the office, imagining having to run from the barracks to the bathrooms for quick bathroom breaks.

“Mess halls are down here,” Coates said, pointing to some houses that looked exactly like the billeting houses, but slightly set apart.

They broke into the barracks, spreading out onto the field to their right, and June felt like a foreigner walking between the rows of training housing, imagining the months ahead of living as the only woman in a crowd of men, always watching her own back. June had held onto some strange hope that it wouldn’t be so bad and that these men were supposed to be disciplined, trained, and respectful. Still, she knew that the military wasn’t an end-all to harassment or assault. In fact, they could probably be more rowdy. She looked around at the buildings and the gaps between them: each had the potential to create some dark corner or hidden gap. Dark corners communicated _danger_ to June, and she forced herself to look straight ahead at the dirt and crabgrass in the main thoroughfare between billet rows.

She was going to take care of herself. _Not all men are like that_ , she reminded herself.

Some of the billets were still being built around the edges of the living quarter zone in various states of construction. They passed a particularly skeletal frame of plywood, some men in ODs perched up top, hammering nails into the roof line. 

June and Coates turned to the right and into a gap, following a column of barracks until they met the open field. June guessed that most of the men were out training because the barracks were all empty, and she was hit with the sight of the training field in full when they cleared the last row.

A track ran around the whole thing, and on the far end stood a shooting range with targets. An obstacle course took up a substantial area in the center, and June could make out figures crawling beneath barbed wire, hauling themselves over a wall, and tripping – sprawling – over a network of ropes. And an officer yelling, occasionally leaning down to get in someone’s face.

June took it all in with anticipation. That was going to be her, on Monday, regrettably. 

“Let’s go back to the PX area,” Coates said, after giving her a moment to watch the field. 

June followed him back across the camp, thoughts of training and sweat running through her mind. She was getting slightly sweaty just rushing after Coates in the afternoon heat, not even doing anything physically significant. She sighed to herself, for the hundredth time that day, and picked up the pace, calves burning a little with the exertion of pushing the bottoms of her feet against her heeled shoes.

They went back to the main grouping of buildings that June had figured to be the headquarters. Coates led her to a nondescript building, just like the rest, which turned out to be something of a laundry house when they were inside. 

“Colonel Sink told me you already have your service uniform, correct?”

June thought of the uniform she’d had tailored right before she left for Georgia, now folded in her suitcase. “That is correct, sir.”

Coates nodded. “Stay here.” He disappeared around a corner. 

June set her suitcase down and looked around with detached interest. Most of the laundering must have happened in the back, because out front in the main room, there was only a counter, a shelf filled with laundry to the right, and plain walls.

Sound floated through the open door behind June, and she stepped to the side of the entryway right as one man detached from a larger group, boots pounding up the few steps that led inside. He immediately acknowledged June with something of a surprised look – seeing women in the other sections of the camp must have been a shock – and gave her a once-over that June knew she was going to have to get used to. She gave him one in return. He was built, more than Coates, sharp-jawed, angular, and dark-haired. Mischievous-looking. 

“Hey, what’s your name?” he said, in a decidedly Philly accent. It was so thick, in fact, that June had to stand for a moment to process the phrase. 

June debated how to react, again. She couldn’t be overly friendly because she needed to be respected. She needed it. She would demand respect. She was not another broad to be messed with.

So June raised her chin, and gave a slight smile which probably showed more in her eyes than her face. She had to look slightly upwards – another thing she’d also have to get used to – but she drew herself up to her full heeled height. 

“Diedtrich, June, Private.” Her eyes darted to his sleeve momentarily. “Hello, Private,” she added. 

He looked taken aback for a moment before settling on a rather disbelieving grin. “Didn’t know there were WACs here.” He sized her up again. “When did you dolls move in?”

June looked over his shoulder at the back doorway, where she expected Coates to come out soon. He was taking longer than she expected, and she chanced a glance out the front door, though she couldn’t see anything at her angle. The conversation had stopped. The others were listening. 

She huffed out a sigh, and bit the side of her tongue, looking flatly at the man, who was expecting an answer. She probably looked shifty, nervous. She planted her feet.

“Not a WAC. I’m integrated into training starting tomorrow,” she said, seeing no other way to put it. 

He looked confused. 

“Same as you,” she explained. 

“The hell?” he said, looking lost. 

As if on cue, Coates emerged from the back, holding a bundle of olive-colored fabric and a canvas sack. The uniform. He had a rifle strap crossing his shoulder and an M-1 dangling off his back. June made brief eye contact with him before the man looked back at Coates, who was still rounding the corner. 

“You hear this girl?” he said to Coates. “Dame says she wants to fight.”

The trainee watched Coates stack the clothes on top of the pile and give the clothes and sack to June after she hefted the M-1 onto her shoulder, who took the bundle with a quiet, “Thank you, sir.” 

She made a show of flipping through the layers while keeping an iron grip on the heavy sack. Sandwiched between two articles of clothing were patches. The insignia of the 506th, but no rank insignia yet. She was a private, not yet worthy of a chevron. She looked at it with pride before remembering she was in the middle of an awkward conversation. 

Putting the pile back together, she tucked it under her arm and faced the trainee once again. Coates didn’t do anything, just looked at the man. 

“Is she crazy?” the man said to Coates. 

Coates looked quickly at the man’s arm, seeming to take stock of his patches. “Name?”

The trainee looked at Coates disbelievingly as if to question his priorities, eyes darting to the sergeant’s triple-chevron on Coates’s arm, but complied after a few tense moments. “Guarnere. Private.”

Coates looked at June. “Well, Private, Diedtrich has been approved by Colonel Sink to take her place at Toccoa. She’ll be running Currahee every day just like you.”

Guarnere’s mouth opened slightly, brows coming together slightly in an expression of indignance. “You don’t mean to say she’s… billeting with the men, do you?” he asked, disbelief evident. 

“It’s up to the Private whether she’s going to wash out or not, regardless of your opinion. If you’d excuse the Private, I believe she has some business to attend to,” he said, already stepping out of the laundry building. 

Guarnere watched Coates with an expression that grew colder and colder by the second. 

“I don’t believe it,” he said, but June was already busying herself with picking up her things, shoving the boots under her other arm, and moving out behind Coates. “You a whore or something, Diedtrich?” Guarnere said to June’s back. 

She stiffened, breathing in sharply, and stopped walking. She didn’t bother to turn around, but she took one moment to calm her nerves and her heart, deadened with shock. When she spoke, she’d never been more glad that there was no quaver. 

“No, Private,” she said, stock-still. “I’m a trainee.” 

She heard a scoff behind her, but June broke out of her immobilized state and started down the steps, out to where Coates was waiting. She passed three men, staring at her in disbelief, who were standing in the dirt outside. She didn’t stop to take their faces down in memory or try to make eye contact. She walked after Coates, who nodded to acknowledge her, and the pair retreated down the path towards her billet. 

Mercifully, Coates didn’t check behind him. June sniffed, once, and blinked away tears that had come of shock more than shame. Coates wouldn’t always be around to defend her. After the relatively calm reception June had gotten from Bea, Sink, and then Coates, she’d gotten used to a false sense of security; she’d held onto some fantastical hope that everyone was just as nice as Coates. 

Obviously, that wasn’t going to be the case. 

June squeezed the handle of her suitcase, hard, and adjusted her uncomfortable hold on the canvas bag. She needed to hold her own the next time, without someone defending her. By herself. She kept forgetting that she was alone. 

♤

“Here it is,” Coates said, gesturing to a barrack house that looked exactly like all the rest. June tried to remember the turns and number of other billets between this and the road. She peeked in, feeling as if she was violating someone’s privacy, though ironically, she knew she was in for possibly the most uncomfortable moments of her life. 

No one was inside. It was nearing late afternoon, the sun past its apex, and sunlight slanted through the windows on the right. The billet was clean and neat – and each bed was tucked and made – just like regulation, but somehow the place had minor touches of personality that were invisible to the indiscriminate eye. Suitcases were stowed under cots, and each man had a small container of belongings – letters, probably, and extra olive drabs among other supplies. 

June walked between the rows of beds, stopping at the first open one. Unfortunately for her, the beds at the far end of the billet were taken, as well as those nearest to the doorway. She set her suitcase on one of the beds a few from the door – woefully away from either end of the billet, eliminating any semblance of privacy – and set her sack down. She sat with her ODs in her lap, putting her elbows on her knees and staring out at the door. 

“June?” Coates’s voice drifted in from the outside.

“Yes, sir?”

“Why don’t you get changed and then we can head down to mess?” Coates said.

“Yes, sir,” June said loudly back through the billet, and soon she heard the door drift closed, with just a sliver of sunlight streaming through the crack. The windows were wide open, but June couldn’t do anything about it. She hoped no one walked by, and she laid out her new ODs on her bed after setting her suitcase below her cot.

She had been given a white t-shirt, standard black shorts – PT gear – and a pair of OD trousers and a jacket. There was a helmet, which she placed on top of the shelf above her bed, like she saw that others had done, and other supplies – canteen, lighter, OD belt – she’d figure out later. She set those in the trunk and got around to putting on the OD uniform.

June had embarrassingly asked one of her old high school friends how to put on the ODs before Toccoa. At least she’d had the foresight to ask whether or not the Army men tended to wear their PT gear underneath their ODs, and after the conversation, she’d left slightly red in the face but much more enlightened, especially about the unique usage of lighters, the trading value of chocolate and cigs, and the impossible durability and infinite odor capacity of ODs.

June also had to run into the problem of underwear. The skivvies that the men were issued were, well, skivvies, and nothing else. June took it upon herself to stock up on brasseries, because she’d taken a look at her corselette and thought _hell no_. Whenever she ran, June had worn smaller bandeau bras and sometimes a bit of bandage cloth. Good thing she didn’t have a huge chest. She’d also brought her smallest pairs of panties because those PT shorts were shorter than anything she’d worn before.

June got to work unbuttoning her white blouse and left it open, working on the side panel on her dark blue wool skirt; she wanted to spend as little time as possible completely unclothed in case someone walked by the window. 

In the corner of her eye, there was movement beyond one of the barracks. She sped up, taking off her shoes and then her pantyhose the fastest she’d ever gone, wondering if Coates was waiting. She stripped off her civilian socks and finally got around to taking the skirt off, hastily pulling the PT shorts on and tying the string. 

_Shoot, shoot, shoot,_ she said to herself like a mantra, feeling like every extra second cemented her as a stuffy woman and not an able soldier. She kept her normal blouse bra on, intending to change it later when the time permitted, and threw on the t-shirt over the top, stuffing it into the shorts. She put on the issued socks, and pulled the pants over her legs, doing the buttons fast with slightly shaking fingers and then tucking the bottoms into her boots like she’d seen the others do, lacing them up for the first time and feeling the stiffness of the leather with resigned expectation. Her feet were going to be painfully blistered by day two, at least. She pulled on the jacket and started cleaning up. 

She shoved her civilian clothing back into the suitcase, already knowing with regret that this was her last day as a woman – but also hoping she wouldn’t have to wear them in a few week’s time, or even a few days, hopping back on a bus out of Toccoa. She hung her service uniform up beside the bed and placed her issued rucksack beside it, on a hook. 

Her hand hovered over the tights, spotting a large run. She must have ripped them in her hurry to tug them off.

“Shit,” she muttered to herself, throwing the ruined pair back into the suitcase with a little more force than necessary. It was not time for regret, so June slammed the suitcase closed with an air of finality, but the muffled bang was accompanied by another sound, in the entryway. 

June spun around, meeting the gaze of a disgruntled man hovering in the doorway, mouth open in surprise. 

“Can I help you?” June blurted, face heating inadvertently at the intrusion as she hastily buttoned up her jacket, pulling on her belt and cinching the waist as tight as it would go. 

The man looked at her, silent, trying in vain to comprehend what was going on in front of him. 

“Who–” he started, then stopped. 

June sighed, trying to calm down her own panicked heart. She turned around and took a few deep breaths, finishing up quickly before the man could even leave the billet. He kept staring until after a few more seconds he pointedly looked down and away. June left the top button undone and dropped the dog tags over her head, tucking them below her PT shirt, the cold metal clinging against her chest and on her bra. 

She turned back around awkwardly and shoved her suitcase below the bed. The man cleared his throat and ducked out of the billet before June could ask for his name. She breathed a sigh of relief. That had been a close call.

She’d be dressing in front of the men in a few hours anyway, she reasoned, with a pit growing in her stomach. It would be worse, with everyone changing at the same time with her spot in the center of the billet.

She checked her watch, which she assumed she was allowed to have under regulation. Coates had one, after all, and she gathered her spirits, checked the ties on her boots, and opened the door of the billet. 

There were a number of men waiting outside, clearly back from training and all watching her step down from the building. More than a few faces were judgemental. Some simply looked very, very confused. June’s heart picked up speed once again, and a cold sweat gathered beneath the collar of her ODs. All eyes were on her: maybe about seven or eight men watched her step onto the path, and they parted for her as she cast darting, nervous glances at the frowning men. She started to crane her head to look for Coates, trying to give herself something to do.

“What the hell?” came a voice from the back of the group. 

June resumed walking away from the gathering, already overwhelmed by the sheer number of people she’d have to try to get to know and possibly win over. These were the people she was to live with, and it scared her more than anything else at the moment.

“Hey, you!” the same familiar voice shouted, and June turned around with no other choice, unable to see Coates anywhere nearby. She schooled her face into something stony and flat, hoping her debilitating anxiety wasn’t bleeding through. She raised her chin and clenched her fists, jaw working. They all had at least three or four inches on her, looming terribly.

The owner of the voice broke through the pack, the others letting him through without protest.

Guarnere.

“Whatcha doing here, Diedtrich?” he sneered, spitting out June’s surname with disgust. “Gonna make some trouble with our billet?” 

June froze. She was housed with this trainee, the one who already had called her something unsavory. She avoided eye contact, settling her eyes somewhere below his chin, but staring forward defiantly, daring him to make a move. Say something else. She was afraid, deathly so, but she wasn’t going to show it. 

Guarnere was clearly expecting an answer. Someone sniggered behind him.

“I’ve been assigned to this billet,” June said flatly, with just a note of unsteadiness in her voice. She eliminated any waver in her next statement. “I don’t intend to give you any problems.” At that, a litany of men started to quietly talk amongst themselves in hushed tones.

Guarnere laughed. The men laughed with him. June’s eyes darted around him, who was beginning to press in closer. She took a step back, noting the attention their exchange was getting. _Where was Coates?_ she thought, almost ashamedly. Her only protector had vanished. 

“I think we do have a problem, girl,” he said, still crowding June. She took another step back. “You’re weak. You’re a _dame_. You don’t belong out here,” he said. “You’re not gonna last a day, starting with Currahee on Monday.”

June raised her eyes to his, and his gaze drilled into her, searching for weakness. She clenched her jaw, knowing a tendon or two would pop because she’d witnessed some street fights in her time. Not that she was any more intimidating at five feet and four inches, but she stood her ground, not taking any more steps back, the decision not to back down already feeling unnaturally confrontational to her. 

_He’s just another West Point prick_ , she thought, trying to make herself less intimidated. 

Guarnere looked down his nose at June, clearly irritated enough to try something. June swallowed, and the motion didn’t go unnoticed. He grinned slightly – a shark-toothed one, sort of predatory.

“Private Diedtrich?” came a voice around the corner. “Private, are you–” Coates’s voice came closer and June heard him cut himself off in surprise. 

June wondered how they looked. Ready to fight, maybe, or maybe as if Guarnere was about to wipe the floor with June. June was no match. None at all. 

“Private Diedtrich,” Coatessaid, slightly nervously, now over her shoulder. June hadn’t turned around to look, but she knew he was behind her, looking at the mob-like crowd that was forming in front of the billet. “I see you’ve met the rest of your platoon.”

Guarnere directed his grimace-like smile over June and onto Coates. 

“Look,” a new voice – calmer – started over the din of whispering men. “Let’s just work this out at HQ.” June watched the guy who’d initially walked in on her changing emerge from the crowd. “Maybe there’s been a mistake or something,” he said, avoiding looking at June. 

It hadn’t been the amount of skin he saw – almost none – but the principle of accidentally seeing her putting on clothes that June was embarrassed by. _Get over it_ , she repeated to herself. _You’re gonna have to change in front of these guys multiple times a day_.

“Fine, Lip,” Guarnere said without looking behind him, backing away from June. He still looked unpredictably ornery, but one of his friends June recognized from the laundry place muttered about chow and gave Guarnere a forceful thump on the back, effectively pushing him away from the scene. The man – taller, tough-looking as Guarnere, and black-haired – directed a powerfully hostile gaze at June before moving away to pull the private towards the mess hall.

Lip, if that was his name – rather gentle-looking in comparison to Guarnere and the other, but still far from _domestic_ – watched the two retreat with a vaguely concerned look. Coates cleared his throat, dropped a finished cigarette, and ground it with his boot. June looked at the extinguished pile of ash and then at Coates. 

_He went away to smoke?_ she thought. _Maybe he thinks it’s improper or something, like he doesn’t want to encourage me to start_. Tough luck. She already smoked infrequently; it was a practice she suspected would get stronger every day she was here in Toccoa. God knew she needed one right now.

As if reading her thoughts, two or three men behind Lip and Coates lit up cigarettes and the crowd seemed to disperse a little. Everyone seemed to want to eat, even though the freakish wonder of the hour was the Broad in the Billet.

“I’m Carwood Lipton. Private,” said the mystery man who had caught June unawares, extending a hand for a handshake. He was the third that day to have done so, and June wondered if simple greetings like handshakes were going to become rare pleasures for someone like her. 

They shook, and Lipton looked back at Coates. “Private, I don’t believe we’ve met before,” Coates said. “I’m John Coates, Sergeant. HQ.”

“Easy Company,” Lipton responded. There was a lapse of silence, and both men turned to look at June, who was in turn watching the last of her billet-mates-to-be drift towards mess, with her hands shoved in her pockets. 

“Would you mind giving us an explanation?” he said to Coates. It did not escape June that she was being talked over, but she kept her mouth shut. “This is all very strange. Are WACs being integrated? Or is she just in the wrong place?” Lipton asked, regarding June’s OD uniform with skepticism.

Coates rubbed at his forehead and stared at the ground. “It’s a new idea, but Private Diedtrich is to train with the experimental training outfit here at Camp Toccoa. If she can clear the physical requirements needed to pass the Basic exam and then keep up with all the men, the Colonel is convinced she can integrate into the paratroopers.” It was the longest and most complete explanation June had heard from him – maybe Lipton seemed more reasonable to Coates, too.

Lipton’s eyebrows came together in concern as he mulled over the statement. “The Paratroopers? She’s trying to be a paratrooper?” he said with obvious doubt, probably noticing how small June was. She was still wearing her makeup from the day, and she almost felt as if she should wipe it off under Lipton’s scrutinizing gaze. But maybe she would pass judgement if she took an effort to reduce the markers of her femininity. She turned around, sensing that Lipton obviously wasn’t going to directly address her anytime soon, and she looked blankly over the field through gaps in the billet rows. “Why?” Lipton asked. 

“That’s something you’ll have to ask the Private,” Coates said, and then they both looked at June again, who could feel their stares on her back.

“Fine,” Lipton said, with a tone that communicated the opposite sentiment. 

Everything was so obviously not fine, and June doubted she’d find anyone as calm about the issue, even if Lipton wasn’t exactly warm. June shifted uncomfortably. The cat was out of the bag, and it would probably only take a few hours for the entire camp to know there was a woman in their midst, playing at being a soldier. 

People were still hanging around. June tried to ignore them and look out over the camp. This was a sight she’d hopefully have to get used to, if she wasn’t thrown out tomorrow for failing the physical requirements. Coates and Lipton were still scuffing around in some disjointed attempt at conversation while watching June. She finally had enough and went back into the billet to get her Army-issue cigarettes, tucking them into a pocket.

She got outside and lit one up, feeling the smoke travel down her lungs. She exhaled, and sighed. 

“Wanna eat?” Coates asked. Lipton trailed behind. 

“Sure, Sergeant,” June said, letting the cigarette dangle from the corner of her mouth while she talked. 

Coates frowned. 

June hastily took the cigarette out in her fingers and straightened, reddening in the face.“I mean, yes sir.” 

The ghost of a smile touched Coates’s face, but he looked too strained to look genuinely amused. “Relax, Private. It’s just mess hall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware I’m probably skipping a lot of steps at this point. Men were supposed to complete Basic before moving onto elite training, and realistically I think June would have had to pass the Basic exam to join the others before this point. But let’s be realistic here: women would not have gone to West Point until, what was it? Like 1948? Women in the US weren’t even allowed on the front lines until a couple of years ago, in the 21st century. 
> 
> There’s a lot of historical inconsistency in this fic, and while I do intend to try and carve out an accurate storyline for June, there are a lot of things I don’t know. I’m trying my best to research, but the whole idea of a female WWII paratrooper is preposterous in itself. So no, June doesn’t complete Basic beforehand. The training is going to be integrated in the PT training she does with the other men, and in a sense, it’s sink-or-swim. She’ll have to go through the Basic test later after a few weeks of training, which is arguably worse because she never got the comparatively cushy Basic treatment (which was prep for the exam) like some of the men. She’ll have to shape up big-time.
> 
> 2\. History
> 
> I am bungling history badly, if I do say so myself. I am making up characters (e.g. Coates, Bea, and more to come), embellishing events, and doing my best with aerial maps of Toccoa, but the layout may be drastically different than what I describe. While I do strongly believe in the preservation of the real veterans’ stories, and I also honor the men who sacrificed much during the war and after, this fanfiction is specifically a work derivative of the HBO series. This means the inconsistencies and flaws of the show may appear in my writing. 
> 
> Major fact-corrections aside (Blithe not actually dying in 1941, Points taking place on May 1, not April 11, etc.), I acknowledge the historical inaccuracies, but I am writing this fic based on information provided from the show and from Ambrose’s (admittedly flawed) work. Some details of my research may be wrong, no matter how many hours I dedicate. 
> 
> And some facts I may choose to ignore in favor of the story. 
> 
> Am I asserting that the real Joseph Liebgott was Jewish? No. Yet he may be so in my story, because the HBO series paints him as genuinely Jewish. However, I am not putting name tags on training uniforms because no one ever actually did. This is picking and choosing, I am aware, but I am also trying to do my best to blend reality and the show in the service of a good plot and a quality fanfic.
> 
> Just some clarification :)


	3. Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June is thrown into the fray, and meets some of the company.

“So, why?” came a voice behind June. It was Lipton. 

“Why did I join the Army, sir?” June stalled, not wanting to have to explain yet again the full-context history of her personal past.

“Yeah, why? A woman like you – you could marry, settle down, have kids,” he said, boots crunching in the coarse dirt. “Isn’t that nicer than slogging around with a bunch of men?”

June had wondered that at some point, too. Why did she have to be different, so ambitious? Why couldn’t she just have met a nice guy and lived somewhere on the California coast: no job to worry about, maybe just two or three children and a kitchen to cook in. She’d have tea with friends or something, have a content life with a husband, and live quietly. No newspaper articles nationally decrying her and her class as products of the radicalized communist youth. No men calling her names. And certainly no physical pain and pushing her body to the limit.

She was no stranger to inordinate challenges.

Only her and a few others in the class had been less connected to politics, but they’d been top of their classes anyway and somehow worked their way up to get Senatorial nominations after being mutually made aware of the girl’s class that year. She’d seen the article in the _San Francisco Sun_ and applied the following month. June had been working as a secretary assistant at the local district office. It took hounding and convincing. Some other girls from less progressive areas had to pull teeth and do favors to get that nomination. She wasn’t exactly sour about it, though. Anyone who had the grit to withstand the West Point treatment had to have the commitment to get in.

She couldn’t help it. June was just how she was. She had tried to reason with herself the year she went to West Point. Why did she have to make her mother so upset? She was selfish, putting her own astronomical ambitions above her own family’s stability. Financially, they had barely been able to afford West Point for the first year. Thankfully, the Depression didn’t hit them particularly hard, but the real strain had been the conflict between June and her mother. 

June tried to organize her thoughts. She’d always been like this, she realized, always reaching for some impossible point far in the distance and getting as close as possible – pulling herself along the broken road of life by her own bootstraps. She got some satisfaction out of doing things. But it had to be alone. She’d broken her high school’s 10,000-meter track record on her own. She’d gotten into West Point on her own merit and by her own networking. West Point itself had sabotaged her efforts by forcing her class to graduate a year early, but June had done as much as she could by herself. It was exhausting sometimes, June knew. The loneliness was almost crushing at times. 

But once she wanted to do something, she had to do it. Failure was not an option, or else she’d implode on herself. Failure was not the way June did things. She would not fail now. But she’d give Lipton the simple answer.

“I wanted to be with the best,” she said. “I want to fight for our country.” She left it at that. _Is that so offensive? That a woman feels patriotism too?_ she wanted to say, but that would have been bordering on disrespectful to her new fellow trainee.

Lipton fell silent and the mess hall grew in the distance as they neared the building. The din of men talking loudly overtook the crunching sand. “I suppose not. Why not a nurse?” he persisted. 

“If you saw men killing themselves because they were denied health clearance to enlist, wouldn’t you feel at least a little motivated to try and fight if you were able?”

He mulled this over. “I suppose,” he said, not sounding very convinced. June sighed, and the three of them stopped in front of the door, where light spilled out from inside the building and some vague smell of cooking wafted out.

Lipton got in line, then Coates, and then June dropped to the back of the group, already feeling like a burden. With Coates starting to seem very concerned over the reactions June elicited from the other men, June felt like she was being babysat by him. He was constantly looking out in other directions. June would have liked to think he was naturally cautious, but she also had a suspicion that Sink assigned Coates to tour her around base because Sink knew Coates would watch her back.

June took in the crowded mess hall. It was almost overstuffed: absolutely exploding with raucous conversation and occasional bursts of laughter. Men moved between tables and benches, which were sandwiched so close to each other that the walking aisles between tables were about the width of one man. It was a sea of soldier trainees from wall to wall.

A few men roughly pushed by to get out the door or to put their trays to the side when they were done. June reflexively ducked her head down in hopes that no one would specifically notice her. No one did, for the time, and men flowed by June as if she was a rock in a river.

June held onto some futile hope that no one would notice her right away. Things were looking up for the few seconds it took for the chow line to move down, but June didn’t relax. Coates handed her a tray, and she moved down, getting a single serving of whatever they had made that day. June didn’t really pay attention: she’d seen the sign and the information went out the other ear. She was too hyper-focused on her surroundings, looking out into the crowd for potentially hostile faces. 

Coates turned around to check on her, and June met his look with a stressed, darting look. Lipton had disappeared, probably to eat with his friends, and June wondered if Coates would leave her too and find his men – HQ Company, she remembered. 

He cast a glance around the room, eyes snagging on a certain cluster of tables near the right side. He’d found whoever he was looking for, and June felt a nervous ice-cold feeling wash down her spine. He was leaving now. This was where she forged her independence. In the midst of the ocean of men – taller, menacing, threatening, and hostile – she would have to find a seat and do it on her own. 

“You a broad?” came an unfamiliar voice, and the frozen feeling of panic came over June with renewed intensity. Her head swiveled up, back and forth rapidly, trying to find the owner of the voice. “Or just a John wearing lipstick?” June turned around and was met with the close stare of a recruit, leaning in.

A smile grew on his face slowly as his eyes took in June’s unamused poker face.

“I’ll be damned,” someone else said close by, and June felt a nudge on her arm from someone else. She jerked away, and leaned in the opposite direction from them, shoulder touching Coates’s back, who was already turned around. June looked pleadingly at Coates, and he looked to identify who was harassing her. 

“What _are_ you doing here?” said the same voice again, and June shrunk back, clutching her tray but unable to leave the scene. She had to eat, find a seat somewhere, but more and more recruits were being alerted to her presence. 

June had stayed silent, but it was getting increasingly harder. Like before, the attention spread quickly, and soon she felt the mess hall become quieter and quieter until after another minute, the noise level had been halved. June glanced above the shoulders of the nearest men, and found eyes directed towards the small gathering in front of the mess hall. 

Her heart was in her throat, and the press of more and more attention was starting to make her sweat. She bit her lip, being stared down by multiple men. She only had two options: run or eat. She intended to eat, because it seemed that this was the way she’d have to elicit eventual acceptance. 

“Shiiiiiiit, out of those ODs you’d be a knockout,” said yet another unfamiliar voice. June cringed. “We could find out–” he was cut off by another voice. 

“What’s going on here?” said a new soldier, pushing through the crowd. Apparently he had some authority, because the men yielded slightly more easily when he elbowed men to the side. He was tall, dark-haired. Heavy five-o-clock shadow. June eyed his patches. An officer. She straightened, and so did the men next to her, including Coates. 

He directed a long, perplexed look at June. He looked quizzically at a soldier next to him, who shrugged in turn. 

“Who are you?” he asked, looking down at June. 

She internally sighed. The men were going to have a kick out of this. She couldn’t salute, so she just stood and firmly spoke. 

“Diedtrich, June. Private, sir.” 

Near-silence had come over the mess hall, save for constant shifting, the sounds of the kitchen – which had also dulled – and the occasional scrape of silverware or glass.

A slightly condescending smile came onto his face as he nodded, looking as if he found the situation entertaining. He looked as if he was going to try to hold back a laugh. June looked at him seriously, never breaking eye contact – her most valuable West Point skill. June felt the eyes of the entire hall on the pair of them, wondering what she was going to do next. It felt as if the room was waiting for something to happen. Clearly this was a man who many of the men knew. They held the staring contest for a couple more seconds, and his mocking expression fell away slightly as he seemed to realize something. 

“Damn, Private,” he said, breaking the silence, comprehending some mysterious fact. “Easy Company?”

“Yes, sir,” said June. 

The man ran a hand through his hair, exhaling powerfully. 

“Well, uh…” he said, clearly at a loss for words. The weird, slightly disoriented half-smile came back. “Welcome to Easy, Diedtrich.” He started to turn away, going back to whatever table he was at, then turned around as if he’d forgotten something.

“I’m uh, Lieutenant Nixon. Lewis Nixon,” he added, looking down at June’s hands holding her tray, evidently not free for a handshake. “See you later,” he said, turning and disappearing for the last time. 

“Sir,” June muttered, a beat too late when the crowd had already coalesced where Nixon had been standing a moment before. 

The quietness of the room was unnerving. June looked about, taking in the various forms of confusion displayed on the faces around her. There was a great deal of muttering, and the atmosphere of the room took on a slightly louder tone, gaining decibels as June stood awkwardly in the center of the crowd. 

June looked down at her food, which was quickly cooling. She didn’t necessarily mind, because it was almost stifling in the mess hall filled with bodies, the kitchen radiating heat, and trapped sun-warmed air. She looked at Coates, who was looking at her. She raised an eyebrow, wondering if he had any comment to offer. He shook his head tiredly. 

The exchange drew a few hoots – _Coates, you know her?_ – and June cursed herself for dragging this innocent man along in the wake of her troublemaking presence. Coates nodded to a nearby table where one half was free, and June squeezed through the press of bodies, careful not to get food on anyone, which at this point was a major achievement; with her luck, she’d have already spilled something or dropped the tray. He sat down across from her, and June set her head in her hands, waiting for the attention to fade away. 

June did remember one thing, though, as the men whirled around her like a hurricane. She quickly located her napkin and dipped it into her water glass, and scrubbed off her lipstick without checking her appearance in any reflections. Her hands itched for a mirror to hold whenever she touched her face, but she stowed the ingrained desire somewhere out of mind, and got to eating the food, trying to distract herself from the continuous looks being directed her way.

Coates watched her carefully, and picked up his fork. June tried to ignore the feeling of guilt she now felt when she looked at Coates. She pushed the food around on her plate after eating about half, feeling too nervous to try and consume the rest; she hadn’t eaten since that morning, but the nerves of the situation were making her stomach contract. She hoped she didn’t throw up later. She needed the protein. 

June remembered the sign telling her to finish everything on the plate, and she tried to swallow a few more bites. After eating calmly for a few minutes, the attention had dispersed except for the stares. She wouldn’t be able to do anything unnoticed, so she waited for Coates to finish his food before following him like a lost child. 

On the way to the exit, a passing soldier hit the bottom of her tray upwards with a glancing blow. Luckily, her dishes stayed on the tray, but her fork and knife flew off. June stood without turning around silently, while another quiet lull blanketed the room. An annoying tingle of heat started in her cheeks, and her heart pounded harder than when she’d finished a sprint, picking up speed when it had just calmed down to a sub-normal pace. Her ears heated. She breathed hard for a couple of exhales and bit the side of her mouth.

 _He’s just tryna get a rise_ , she told herself. Coates waited nonchalantly by the doorway, watching her to see what she did. June was glad. Him helping her would turn into something worse, and she’d possibly be seen as someone even weaker.

“There you go, babe!” someone yelled from far behind her. Scattered laughter drifted up from the hall.

She bent down and took her time collecting the silverware, trying to conceal the shake in her hands. She turned around, dumped the contents of her tray in the washbin, and without another backward glance, walked out with the eyes of the entire mess hall on her back, again. 

“Yeah, go get her, Coates!” someone said from inside. Within a few seconds, he was again by her side. 

June grew more furious and upset by the second, walking wherever her feet were taking her – far away from the mess hall, out beyond the paths and between the barracks, passing billet after billet, picking up speed. The evening air cooled her face, and she went faster and faster. She heard feet crunching on the dirt behind her, and she walked even more rapidly, hoping to lose him. 

“Private!” called Coates, and June immediately slowed for the NCO. She wiped roughly at her eyes, dragging her fingers under them, stretching out her skin and massaging circles into her temple, hard. 

“Yes, sir?” she said, turning around. They were caught between two billets, and she hoped both were empty. 

Coates looked as if he wanted to say something else, but he decided against it, rubbing the back of his neck and kicking at the dirt with one boot.

June wondered what he thought of her at this point. Some weak, delusional woman trying to fulfill some fantasy of a man’s world? Maybe. That’s what it seemed most of the men thought. She didn’t fault them. That was almost exactly what she was doing.

“I think this is where we part, Private,” said Coates after a long pause. June knew this was coming, so she took it with a nod. “I’ve served my purpose for the day,” he continued. “I work at Battalion HQ, so you know where to find me.”

“Yes, sir,” June said, overwhelmed by guilt yet again. She needed to say something, apologize maybe, but Coates talked on.

“Make sure you get back to the billet at twenty-two hundred,” he said. “You have free time until then, and then lights out. I don’t think you need guidance on the rest of the schedule. I hear your CO is… particularly demanding.”

June nodded, not wanting to say goodbye even though she was probably being too melodramatic about it. He was, after all, never going to be more than a number of yards away at the Battalion HQ. But to June, it was as good as miles. She’d probably never have a reason to enter HQ soon, unless Sink saw fit to talk to her or release her from base. 

“You have an uphill fight, Diedtrich,” he said, leaning back against the billet and looking southwards, towards the rising mountain that arched above the camp, brushing the fault of the skies.. 

“Thank you,” June said suddenly. Coates looked at her, eyes widening. “Thank you, Sergeant, for sacrificing your day. Without you I would have been alone.”

He nodded, surprised. “It wasn’t any problem, Diedtrich. I got a free day out of it, as far as I’m concerned. Away from Sink and all the top brass, anyway,” he said, cracking a smile. “Brighten up, Diedtrich. You have Sink on your side, even if he doesn’t look it. If he saw something in you, there’s hope yet.”

June pondered the words. “Thanks, sir.”

“Go light on the smoking,” he said in response, easing off the wall and starting to turn back onto the path that would lead to the HQ billet. “Good luck, Private Diedtrich.”

“Goodbye, sir,” June said, wishing she could say more. Her gratitude vastly outstripped the brief words she’d gotten out. But it seemed that the final goodbye was sufficient, so she watched Coates’s retreating back until he disappeared around a corner. Her first ally was gone, and June tried to settle into the familiar loneliness that was her default these days. It fit, much to her relief, like an old, worn jacket.

She checked her watch. It was half-past seven. She looked out onto the empty, darkening field. The track around it was inviting. Her final conversation with Coates had made her rage almost completely dissipate, but she needed the outlet, even more than a smoke. 

She set off for the track, intending to go around for an hour or two. When she stopped, though, she’d been going at it for two, walking and running away her thoughts until it was her and the pounding pavement and her blistering feet.

♤

June reported back to her billet thirty minutes before 2200. Light streamed through the crack in the door, and she stopped outside, listening to the voices. It would have been nice, if only her disturbance wasn’t going to destroy whatever peaceful comraderie had been developing before she arrived. Again, June was a burdensome intrusion on the lives of soldiers just trying to learn to fight. She had calmed down after the blissful emptiness of the run, and she opened the top few buttons of her ODs, flapping the chest a little to encourage ventilation. She waited for longer than necessary, then nudged the door open a few inches, watching the small view the door permitted. 

Some of the men were having a rather loud conversation about something. 

“No, I swear that’s her stuff,” someone protested loudly near the door. “Who else would be joining this billet?”

“Nix says she’s in Easy,” another voice added. “Of course she’s in here.”

“Hey, that’s Lieutenant Nixon to you, Perco.”

“Come on, it could be someone else. Volunteers are coming in each day,” said someone else. “We can’t assume–”

“Let’s ask Lip,” someone said. June stiffened, suddenly alert. “What were you doing in here before she came out–”

June opened the door before Lipton could respond, and looked at the men who had apparently been gossiping about her. The billet fell silent, and thirteen pairs of eyes snapped to June. She’d schooled her face into the customary one, again. When she’d be able to relax around these men who were supposed to have her back, she didn’t know; she didn’t know if it would ever occur. She pushed the discouraging thought of her mind and kept it carefully empty, gathering information quickly; she also quelled her reaction to the smell of the barracks. It should have been expected, but the wood, smoke, and sweat hit June all the same with unpleasant surprise.

Lipton was sitting on a bed to the immediate right of June, in the first row nearest to the doorway, looking rather tired of June already. Some faces she almost recognized from the incident outside the billet that afternoon, but she didn’t know their names. And then there was Guarnere, fifth row down to the left, almost exactly across from June’s empty bed, with an unlit cigarette between his fingers, and a deadly expression daring June to look a little longer. 

Almost every bed was filled except for two or three near the center of the billet, and there was a man on or near each taken bed. June’s cheeks heated again under the scrutiny – something she couldn’t help – and she made a beeline towards the bed where she’d laid her things down previously. There was no more privacy, not even a semblance of one. June looked down her nose at the man sitting on the bed nearest to hers, vaguely aware that there was a fine line between making an impression that was unyielding and one that was _bitchy_.

She figured the men were going to call her one anyway, so she erred on the side of strictness. She said nothing, just lowered her eyelids into a mockery of passive calmness and silently took in one face at a time, praying that they didn’t hear her blood pounding deafeningly, and the miniscule tremor in her muscles as she locked them into place.

She figured she didn’t have to introduce herself. Everyone already knew who she was. As she got halfway to her bed, Lipton cleared his throat pointedly. June turned around. 

“You want to uh…” he waved a hand, “introduce yourself, Private?” Lipton asked haltingly.

June cast another gaze over the rest of the billet. She saw no other alternative. 

“Uh, hello,” she started, pausing and mentally cursing herself – _way to make an awkward introduction even more awkward_. “I’m June Diedtrich,” she said without tone.

No one said anything in response. Her statement seemed to echo in the empty air, caught in the energy of unsaid thoughts. June watched a few men exchange glances with each other. With considerable effort, she unglued herself from her stationary position and resumed her walk to her bed: fourth on the right.

When she got there, she sat down on the side next to the empty bed, feeling as if she’d exerted herself more in the five-second journey than her exercise in the past few hours. She felt simultaneously light-headed and heavier burdened, and she sat silently without making eye contact with anyone. Gradually, the men started talking again, but nowhere near as loud as before June had entered. 

She waited and waited for the right time, and convinced herself she had to do it. After a few more minutes, she knew she couldn’t wait any longer, and further stalling would only be willful hesitance on her part. _Just get it over with_ , she thought, and she started on the first few buttons, opening her ODs to the PT gear underneath. She tried to muffle the button snaps as best she could, but there was no avoiding the looks. 

June fixed a murderous glare somewhere in the distance between two other bunks opposite the room – refusing to look at anyone – and undid the belt, slipping off the OD jacket quickly and setting it on the bed next to her. The conversation in the room had died down again, and she was once again the center of attention. She huffed quietly, and began undoing the buttons on the pants.

Some subtle shifts in her periphery told June that some men were trying to turn away slightly or direct their eyes elsewhere. She knew most of them still wanted to look, maybe if only for the novelty of a woman doing the same routine that they had been going through for about a month or two. She got the pants over her hips and thighs by standing slightly, and sitting back down for the rest, shucking the whole article off after pulling the bottoms out from her boots. She threw the pants down on her bed with probably more force than necessary, feeling the satisfying crinkle of fabric when it hit the jacket. 

June stood up to readjust her shorts, fiddling with the tie. She looked up, feeling like she had to at some point. About half the men were openly staring and about half were acting like they weren’t when she knew they had been. She hadn’t even had to strip down to her undergarments and she felt debilitatingly embarrassed. 

She packed up the ODs and laid them in her trunk, the amount of air hitting her legs feeling unnaturally inappropriate. She’d never been this unclothed in front of anyone before, other than at the beach or when she’d had to get clothing tailored, very rarely. She had no time to prepare for the unsettling exposure. She’d been thrown into it, and today was a day of firsts.

No one made any comment or whistled, to June’s minor relief. She figured that in a smaller setting, men were less inclined to single themselves out. It was the nameless mob she had to worry about, or at least she hoped. 

There was another thing June had to do before bed. She unhooked her rifle from its hook above the bed, and heard more than a few hushed mutters. At least she was confident in this procedure: at West Point, the girls had learned how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble their weapons: essential Academy stuff. They had practiced with something similar to the M-1 Garand, which was what June weighed in her hands.

Someone beside her made a sound, and June turned to find the nearest man looking reasonably nervous at June’s handling of the gun. She scoffed, looking briefly at him, and then turned back to her rifle, sliding the bolt open and checking the chamber before she flipped it over on her bed and set to taking the trigger assembly out. She subsequently laid out all the parts as she deconstructed the gun, little by little. She was a little rusty, but back at the Academy, she’d mastered the skill, and the fine movements were coming back to her. She got up to retrieve some tools and a towel from her trunk, and cleaned the parts before slotting them back together. 

There was nothing June could do about the mood of disbelief emanating from most of the nearby men, but she finally snapped the trigger guard back into place and played with the safety a few times to finish. She wiped her hands off and gave the bolt a few satisfied pumps. June knew a clean gun was Army standard, and that they were expected to regularly clean them. She knew no one expected her to already know. She was quietly smug, basking in the brilliance of proving the others wrong. It was a special type of fulfillment.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” came a voice from June’s left. It was the man next to her, sitting cross-legged on his bed, looking at her gun intently.

June gave something that was almost a smile, but then buried it under indifference, remembering her need for respect. Friendliness was not an option. 

“West Point,” she said, turning to hang the rifle up again. There was a long silence – something that was growing very frequent in the billet.

“Bullshit,” came a voice from the other side – the second-to-last row on the left. “West Point doesn’t accept girls.”

June shrugged, trying desperately to sell an image of nonchalance. “Guess they decided to.”

“You been living in a hole, Skip?” said her bed neighbor. “It was all over the news. They have girls now,” he said. 

Skip scrunched his eyebrows together, taken aback. “The hell. Why?” he said.

Most of the men shrugged. Lipton looked at June without saying anything.

“Where ya from?” asked a new voice from beyond Skip. Why anyone was interested in knowing was beyond June, but she answered.

“San Francisco.”

A few heads turned to a bed near the back. The man on it looked around, annoyed. “What?” he said.

“Lieb, aren’t you from San Francisco?”

“Kinda,” he said, mildly irritated, as if sharing a city of origin would somehow contaminate him with the association of June. “Family moved down to Oakland later.”

There were a few nods. June knew all the men were showing restraint. Normally they’d probably be talking freely.

“I’m Skinny, by the way,” said the man nearest to June. He didn’t offer a handshake, but there was something close to a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. It was there for sympathy. “You already know Lip, I guess, but…” He slapped the shoulder of the guy between him and Lipton. “Introduce yourself. She’s gonna have to know for drills, unless you wanna run an extra mile for her mistakes.”

June did not want to be reminded of the impending marches and group drills, and especially group punishment.

The man rolled his eyes. “I’m Alex Penkala.”

“Carwood Lipton,” said Lipton.

“Martin,” said the man with the thousand-yard stare across from Lipton. And the sequence ran down the left row. 

“Grant.”

“Perconte.”

“White.”

Everyone looked at Guarnere. “Come on, Bill,” said Lipton when Guarnere didn’t say anything. 

“We’ve met,” he growled. 

“Roe,” said the dark-haired man next from Guarnere after an awkwardly long pause. 

“Skip,” said the next. 

“Malarkey,” said the man who asked her where she was from.

The last man on the right column started after Malarkey. “Tipper.”

“Liebgott.”

“Hanson.”

June looked around, trying hastily to remember all the names. There were too many, and she blinked. She was never great with names. Maybe the quirk of their nicknames would help somewhat.

She sighed. This was already hard, and they hadn’t even gotten physical yet.

“We have a few more minutes, and then lights out,” said Lipton over the billet. “I don’t know about you, but I feel a night march in my bones,” he warned, and the men groaned. Some of them threw malicious glances at June, as if it was her fault. 

As June would find out, it was nearly impossible for anything to _not_ be her fault. Their CO was demanding, as Coates had heard. In fact, Sobel was much more than demanding. He was, in June’s eyes, the devil incarnate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is unbeta-ed! I apologize for any gross mistakes.


	4. Sobel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for the night march.

June had sat up awake for hours, watching the patterns of moonlight shift through the windows inch by inch. The others were all asleep. Sounds of heavy breathing and slight snoring filled the billet, and June still lay in her bed, processing the day. She needed to fall asleep, but she couldn’t. Her body was simply on high alert and unable to relax.

She’d already braided her hair in an attempt to come up with some manageable and out-of-the way hairstyle that didn’t require her to buzz it off, fumbling around with hair ties after lights-out. She had some feeling that cutting off her hair would be an even bigger deal than her keeping it long, and she ended up with two tight braids that trailed mid-way down her chest. 

She wouldn’t be able to pin-curl her hair now though, which was slightly upsetting to June. Looking a little less than put-together was one thing, but looking unkempt was not June’s preferred style. Any woman out-and-about who neglected to pin their hair or set curls looked relatively sloppy, and probably had their hair up in a headscarf when they didn’t have the time. June had brought a few, but she knew they were probably unregulation. She didn’t want anyone to be forced to make any exceptions. The headscarves stayed in her luggage, as did the hair pins.

June wasn’t looking forward to foregoing her customary front hair rolls. Every woman wore her hair rolled. She was going to look terrible. 

She shifted, feeling only the slightest bit more safe when she knew the men were unconscious. She still felt as if she was being watched, though it was irrational. Even though the men didn’t like her, no one was waiting in the shadows to strangle her in her sleep. 

The night was overly warm, and June shifted again, sliding her legs to another area under the thin Army sheets. There were no cooler spots, and she didn’t flip over her pillow, fearing the conspicuous noise it would make. If she just fell asleep she wouldn’t have to even withstand the uncomfortable warmth. She’d sleep through it. June suspected the billet was like a greenhouse, trapping the body heat from the thirteen men, who were probably each moderately muscled and radiating warmth.

She huffed out a breath, shifting again and lying on her side. Her dog tags brushed together and fell uncomfortably into her bra, and she fumbled around to fish them out. 

Someone snorted in their sleep. June’s vague nausea had left her, but she still felt strange. She drummed her fingers silently on top of the sheets, thinking.

June sometimes thought there was something wrong with her. There had to be a reason that none of the other women from her class – twenty-four of them – hadn’t elected to join June and try to serve in the active military. 

After Pearl Harbor was hit, many of the women abandoned their nebulous plans of climbing up the rungs of D.C. and resolved to join the Women’s Army Corps. June realized the value of the WACs and probably would have joined if she hadn’t been at West Point. But she reminded herself that she was there, and not to waste the years that got her this far. She was going all the way overseas.

June had asked a few of the women what they thought. Many of them had been supportive of her decision but skeptical of its practicality – and respectability. After all, women had never served except for rare historical cases of them posing as men, and it was doubtful that any stunt like that could work in the present, what with health exams and barracks and the like. 

June had promised Marie and Florence that she’d write monthly. Their parents were senators. June was careful around them. She knew they’d try to get her help behind her back. This was going to be fair-and-square, for the first time in her life.

Something outside the billet made June hold her breath and listen. It was a small barely-audible sound, towards the front and outside the door. She strained, trying to actually make out what the noise was. A skittering squirrel, perhaps? A rat? The wind blowing light gravel?

She listened for a few more seconds and almost relaxed, until another unmistakable clatter sounded outside the billet. June didn’t want to bother to wake anyone up. This was Toccoa, a military base. No one could sneak in or out undetected with the 24-hour watches around the entry points. It was probably someone out for a midnight smoke. A guard change. Or maybe it just was a rat. 

There were crunches. June recognized it as the sound of boots shuffling through gravel. 

Right as she realized someone was standing directly outside, the door slammed open with a bang and the lights of the billet blazed to life in a stunning moment. A startlingly voice exploded forth from the man at the front. 

“Attention!” came the loudest voice June had ever heard, and she kicked off her sheets as fast as possible, swinging her legs over the bed and getting her bearings with panicked rapidity. She quickly realized all the other men were standing on the other sides of their cots. She sped around to the other side just as the last man – Tipper – was up and at attention.

There was no time to think about the other men. She stood with heels together, boots somewhere else unknown, arms stiff to the side and chin up, eyes forward. She wanted to look at their commanding officer: see who he was, what he looked like. She risked a slight sideways glance just in time to see the CO stalking towards her with long, heavy strides. She swallowed and looked forward again. 

“ _Who_ are you?” the man demanded in a hostile, deafening shout. He stopped in front of June, her eyes only reaching up to the top of his leather and sheepskin collar. 

“Dietrich, June. Private, sir,” she said, hoping it wasn’t too quiet or too loud. Her blood was rushing in her ears and her hands were shaking. She tried to tamp down the unintentional movement without the CO noticing. He was terrifying.

“Private June. Why,” he said, still at a shout, despite being inches away from June’s ears, “are your boots not on?”

June’s mouth went dry. She desperately needed to know how to answer, but she couldn't look away to make futile eye contact with the other men for fear that the officer would notice. 

“There was no time, sir,” responded June, perhaps too weakly. 

“There was no time?” yelled the CO furiously. “No time, Private?”

June tried to swallow again, but couldn’t. Was that a question? Rhetorical question? Did it require an answer? What was she–

“That is no excuse!” roared the officer, almost deafening June. “Incorrect!” He cast a glare around the billet – or at least, June thought it was a glare, because she was too short to properly see his expression without looking up, which she figured would break attention. 

When his glare returned to June, he paused for half a second – for the fear effect, maybe. “June, your weekend pass is revoked!” he shouted over her head, and he stalked away to the door of the billet. 

“Full field equipment! Standing in formation at zero dark hundred!” he roared. He then left the billet, slamming the door with ground-shaking force. More than a few helmets bounced to the floor, and the billet exploded with renewed, panicked energy.

June checked her watch. It was already 0000. “Shit.”

She got on her ODs as fast as she could, dressing faster than she’d ever done in her entire life. She breathed a quiet thanks for her habits, because her hands were already accustomed to speed-dressing herself with the layers under traditional female civilian clothing. She got the base layer on, and then spared a few seconds to watch the other men pull on their rucksacks, belt their pouches, tuck their pants into their boots, and hook their bayonets on. June lagged behind, digging through her trunk to throw on the seemingly limitless articles of clothing. No one helped her, even though men kept throwing her dirty looks. Apparently this was the new-recruit treatment. Whatever tenuous neutrality that had been forged that evening was gone, because no one volunteered to help even though June was clearly struggling.

She almost gave herself whiplash grabbing different things from different sides of the bed: the bayonet case from the trunk, the M-1 from near the head of the bed, then back to the trunk to get various supplies she thought might need to be in the rucksack. She held her empty water canteen for a few seconds, looking at it helplessly. 

“Hey, Diedtrich,” said an annoyed voice. June looked over, and Skip was pointing vehemently at the backside of the uniform. “Hook it, hook it in,” he said. June tried. “Skinny, help her,” Skip yelled irritably. 

Skinny rolled his eyes and stepped over his bed, already dressed with a helmet under his arm. “It’s right _here_ ,” he said curtly, roughly grabbing the canteen from June and thrusting it towards the belt. “Turn your belt,” he said, and June yanked it around. She felt a click and a forceful tug, and she grabbed at her jacket as Skinny pushed the canteen on. 

“Thank you–” June started.

“Get dressed by yourself,” he interrupted, avoiding June’s eyes and almost running back to his bed, picking up the helmet and busting through the front door, leaving June and only two or three men in the room. She rummaged through the supplies already placed into her rucksack from the start, wondering if she’d forgotten anything essential. What could possibly be essential on the march?

“What else do I–” she cut herself off, looking at an empty room. The heel of a boot disappeared out the door, leaving the door swinging gently on its hinges, bouncing off the doorframe. _Shoot._

June grabbed her helmet off the shelf, jammed it on her head, and swung the rucksack on. She put the rifle on her shoulder, and dashed out the door without giving her uniform another once-over. 

Once outside the billet, she was welcomed to the sight of three organized platoons, men already in their assigned positions, and the men from her billet comprising a section of the platoon in the center. 2nd Platoon. She was supposed to be in here. But was she assigned a spot? June circled around the back of the platoons, where all the men stood stock-still. About a hundred and forty men stood there in total. June had never felt the combination of confusion and panic so intensely as in that moment, standing in the dark with no spot to report to. 

June was sure all the men knew she was back behind them, trying to find a place; she held her helmet on her head as it swiveled around when she turned, the disorienting feeling like a weight dropped onto her neck. The last man from a billet three doors down rushed into place, and the grounds were once again silent except for the crunch of boots coming towards June. She had no choice but to stand at attention, so that was what she did, already sensing the presence of the towering CO looming like a maelstrom. 

“Private June!” came the hollering voice, and June straightened even more than she thought was possible, muscles tensing from the fear and the force of his voice. “What are you doing?” he demanded. 

June stared forwards into the officer’s dark silhouette, not knowing the correct answer. When a beat passed, she felt it was too late to say anything. What else could he be looking for? A cold fear settled itself on top of the panicked, hot kind, seeping into her bones. Was she going to be thrown out now? Was this the test, and she’d failed? Certainly Sink knew about everything. Maybe he’d directed the CO to ask a set of specific questions. Maybe she’d missed something important–

“Private! Answer me!” came the grating yell, the sound hitting June’s eardrums with excessive force. 

“I don’t know my place in the platoon, sir,” she responded in her best soldier voice, almost shouting. It was still higher than all the other men’s voices, but she still tried to sound more masculine, digging deep and bringing the yell out from her chest. Maybe the CO would find her slightly less annoying without a tinny voice and leave her alone. She was hyper-aware that all the other men lined up out on the grounds, and probably the nearby billets could all hear her voice and the commotion. 

June considered that maybe the approximately one hundred and forty men in formation comprised the whole company out in the dark, at midnight, forced to march because of her arrival to the 101st Airborne. Her thoughts were cut short by the officer, once again. 

“Lieutenant Winters!” he yelled, and June was surprised that for once, the officer wasn’t yelling at her. “Assign June to a place in your platoon.” June didn’t miss how he almost imperceptibly dipped his voice to stretch out her name – _Ju-une_ – like she was being made fun of. She assumed it wasn’t necessarily special treatment. It seemed that all the men feared the CO. He probably gave everyone a hard time when they couldn’t escape his notice. 

“Yes, sir,” came an unfamiliar voice from the other side of the block of men. A crunch of boots and a few seconds later, a new man – Winters – stood before June, and the first officer stood back by a few feet. She couldn’t make out any details of his face, in the dark and obscured by his helmet. 

“Hurry up, Winters,” said the CO, checking his watch. “We don’t have all night to make this ten-mile march.” June was already getting tired of his voice. The man found every excuse to make a scathing remark or command. 

“Private Diedtrich,” he said, much more quietly than the CO, though still firm and strong. “Join the last row of Second Platoon.” He pointed to the line of men, where the row was incomplete. 

“Yes, sir,” June said, walking the short distance to the rear of the platoon, hoping the CO wouldn’t find anything else to comment on. She stopped, facing forwards, not risking the glance back, staring emptily into the man’s back in front of her. None of the men from her billet were nearby – most of them were near the front of the platoon. She’d have to learn the names of the other men somehow. Apparently now was not the time, because the CO moved to the front of the company. 

“Easy Company!” he shouted, the voice booming over all the other billets. June wondered how the entire base slept at night with a CO this eager to disturb everyone’s sleep in charge of Easy. “Move out,” he yelled. June followed her platoon, copied their turns, and watched the separate blocks of men fall into line. 

♤

Thirty minutes ago, she had been able to deny to herself that everything was fine, and that the phantom ache in her ankles and toes was just a symptom of the running she’d done earlier in the day, and the distance she’d covered walking in her high-heels. An hour in, June was starting to feel perturbed. 

The only time June had needed to break in shoes was when she’d gotten new loafers or new high heels – rarely, because she didn’t need new shoes very often. But these paratrooper boots were stiff leather and hard to the touch. They were barely yielding, and when June had first needed to shove her feet into the boots, the ordeal took a surprising amount of time. She’d never had to wear boots, but by the time they were on, she’d felt rather nice in them with the ankle support and heavy treads. 

She was not appreciating the stiffness of the boots now. June hoped the intensity of this single night of hard marching was going to soften the leather, but it wasn’t going to be easy on her feet during the journey. Her feet started to ache around the first hour. It was a small amount of pain, a little like soreness, and her socks had shielded her feet from most of the damage. 

While June walked, she tried to get a sense of the company. She knew Winters was at the front somewhere, leading the platoon. 2nd Platoon was between 1st and 3rd, and June was conscious of the 3rd Platoon tailing hers only a few feet behind. If June was to fall or something – God forbid – the entirety of the 3rd Platoon would probably get a good look at her. She tried to remember where the CO had gone, but it seemed that he didn’t go with them. 

He yelled at the men but he didn’t march with them, she concluded.

The weight of the ruck on her back plus the rifle on her shoulder must have amounted to something like thirty or forty pounds. June didn’t know what exactly was in the pack when she first received it, never having the time to look inside, but the supplies weighed as much as a fifth of her own body weight. The helmet didn’t help either, feeling cumbersome and clanky on her head. She started to sweat in the first thirty minutes. The combined heat of the air, the road, and her body made the uniform stifling despite the cooler night weather. The ruck march wasn’t miserable, but it was getting tiresome and slightly painful.

By the second hour, it was twice as bad. June felt the back folds of the boot digging into her heels every time she took another step, and the sides of her toes were feeling raw. The march was brisk and unrelenting. If June ran distance for miles, it had been six, seven at the maximum. This was different: walking for endurance was intense and merciless. It was as if there were small rocks shoved into her boot wherever her foot was pressed up against the boot leather. 

She thought she had a high pain tolerance, but the pain built by the minute, and she quickly deteriorated at a concerning rate after the second hour passed. Each step felt like a pin was sticking deep into her skin. She tried not to imagine it, but once she came up with the metaphor, the image would not leave. She squeezed her eyes shut momentarily and gritted her teeth. There were blisters forming, and June was very aware.

She wasn’t exactly limping, but June started to step lighter to try to get the pressure off her hurting feet. It only helped fractionally, and she started breathing a little heavier. It was inaudible, hopefully, covered by the rhythmic crunch of feet, static of cicadas, and low ambiance of quiet mutters.

She took a drink of water from her canteen, and then missed the rim of the bottle with the cap twice, knees buckling slightly as the jabbing in her right heel worsened. She let out a small sound under her breath and twisted the cap on, returning the canteen to its place on the second try.

She denied to herself that the blister was growing, but she felt the strange, alarming sensation of her skin being chafed back and forth until the skin was separating from her foot. She pictured a bubble growing under the skin, and she tried to cast it out of her mind. 

With the pain mounting, she couldn’t stop thinking about it no matter how hard she tried. The skin on the joint of her instep felt as if it was being scraped by a knife every time her boot hit the ground. She hit a rut in the road, and her foot plunged into the hole unexpectedly, causing her to stumble. She sucked in a breath and righted herself. The next step took more effort than she would have liked, and she clenched her left fist around its hold on the rifle strap, hissing quietly.

June was not unaware of the glances aimed her way every mile or so. It was rare, but sometimes another new head would turn around for a split second before facing forward again. 

It had taken some time, but June eventually realized the man next to her on her left was Guarnere’s friend, the one with a look to kill. She hadn’t risked openly looking at him – she couldn’t really, not in the pitch-black night – but she could hear the sounds of his breathing a little better than the other men because of his proximity. This concerned her, because any irregularity in her breathing could probably be picked up by him.

She did not want to appear weak in front of any of the men, but especially this one: a part of the hostile group. It was inevitable, though, that at some point she’d hit a breaking point and have to make a noise.

Her right foot hit something – a pointy rock or hump – and it slid off the obstruction and back to the ground all in one second. The impact pressed the side of the boot against her joint, already swollen, raw, and irritated. A blister must have been forming there, because something feeling unmistakably like a soft pop accompanied the jolt of pain. The stabbing sting was enough to make June gasp louder than she had previously, and she quickly muffled the accompanying wince, but it was still clearly audible. She felt the momentary relief from the pressure released from the wound, but moments later the rubbing resumed, worse than before. 

Something moist was soaking into her sock. June hoped it wasn’t blood, but there really was no value in hoping at that point. It was probably blood, because unfortunately things turned out the worst for her in situations like these. She’d have to be stuck washing her socks, or she’d have to buy new ones. She’d have to clean her boots too, the dang things. She’d been excited to get boots, too.

The moisture seeping into her sock was in the boot on the right. With some more time, the blister on her heel in the left boot popped too, after she didn’t lift her boot high enough off the ground and stumbled forward suddenly, the boot knifing bladelike sensations across her back ankle. Small dribbles of _something_ began to creep up her sock in that boot, and she muttered a barely-audible _shit_ , struggling to right herself after she reeled backwards, trying not to hit the man in front of her. Something pulled on her elbow, correcting her balance, and let go. June looked up at the man next to her who acted like he hadn’t caught her arm. He ignored her like he had been the entire way, and June faced forwards again, trying not to limp.

By the time the Company was entering the third hour, June began to hear other men sporadically mutter to themselves or their platoon-mates – _my feet are dead, corp_ – floated up from somewhere in the middle of 2nd. June couldn’t react through her slog of pain. She kept silent, trying not to visibly limp from the aching.

Still, she needed to toughen her feet up and develop calluses. Apparently the runner’s calluses weren’t enough. If her feet were this battered, maybe there was something wrong. June began to wonder what kinds of wounds caused men to get dismissed or discharged from the paratroopers, and she forged on, determined not to let any potential blistering get her thrown out or make her unfit for service. By this time, she’d gotten used to the idea of blood in her boots, but it wasn’t drying, and June tried not to think about the ungodly metallic smell that would result if she peeled off the socks and boots.

A few minutes after three hours was up, Toccoa appeared in the distance. June perked up and the Company seemed to gain energy just from seeing the gates, too – and subtly, the mood began to lift. They eventually passed beneath the Camp Toccoa entry, the gates, and the brush lining the road into camp. 

The minutes leading up to the end of the march were the worst for June. Every step was one inch shy of excruciating. The boots and their chafing felt less like knives now and more like screwdrivers being driven into June’s bones. The backs of her heels and the joints on her insteps felt like hellfire, regardless of which foot was doing the stepping. When the paved road turned smooth again, it was a small mercy. June’s feet still throbbed like there was no tomorrow.

It was like ten years had passed when the Company returned to the billets, not three hours. If the men were moaning and groaning in the last leg of the journey, no one was making any noise now. They all knew the CO was waiting for them. 

When Winters told the platoon to halt, June almost sighed with relief. The aching was beyond words. She wanted to sit down on the ground, but she stood still like she knew she had to, waiting with arms at her sides and back as straight as she could make it, wondering if the CO was going to single her out, again, for some reason that escaped her reason.

Like clockwork, the CO strode out from the darkness, holding a stopwatch and looking, from what June could see in the darkness, disapprovingly. 

“Three hours and seventeen minutes,” he shouted promptly, holding up the stopwatch that no one could read in the low light. “That is seventeen minutes too slow. You are _Easy Company_. You _will_ be the best.”

He walked the length of the platoons, yelling his disappointment as he went. “I expect the best. _This_ was not the best.”

He paused, and for one fearsome moment, June expected him to come barreling down the gap between 3rd and 2nd, yelling at her specifically. But he didn’t, and then said something June never thought would happen. 

“Company dismissed,” he all but screamed, probably waking up at least half the camp.

The men scattered to their billets, trying to catch the few hours of sleep that had left between the march and the early-morning wakeup. June stood in her place for a few extra seconds, relishing the moments where her feet didn’t move. One or two men gave her looks on their way into the billets, but June didn’t care at that point. Her feet. They hurt. They hurt worse than she’d ever had them hurt before. 

She lifted one and groaned quietly, stepping with the other back towards the billet. After the brief rest, all June wanted to do was sleep on the ground outside the billet.

She made it to the door, pushed it open, and closed it behind her. Only with the light on in the billet was June able to look down and assess the initial damage. Without taking her boots off, June already saw a dark, lustrous patch of shiny blood traveling from her heels to the floor. 

She almost cursed, but then stopped herself. She half-turned around, looking at a spotty trail of bloody heelprints she’d left on the billet floor up to the first row of beds.

All the men had been getting out of their ODs and into their beds. They’d stopped to watch June walk in, and she knew they were all looking at the mess she’d made of the floor. She’d have to clean it, too, she figured, casting a tired and empty look to the back of the billet, ignoring the piercing stares. Her ears grew hot, and she was sure her face was reddening.

She had forgotten about her stoicism, and found herself making a slight expression of disgust at the trail. She didn’t do anything about it, because the men had all seen through her poker face anyway. She breathed out her heaviest sigh yet.

A voice from her right startled her among the sounds of ODs being thrown off. 

“Roe?”

The dark-haired man from far down the billet nodded and rose.

“Can you maybe…” Lipton trailed off, staring at June, who had given into the pain and was now leaning heavily against the wall. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Martin lean around to get a better look, and she glared at him. 

“I’m fine,” June said scratchily, trying to let go of the wooden post. Perconte looked at her in disbelief. Lipton looked her in the eyes and raised an eyebrow. 

“You are not going to sleep until you get those feet checked out,” he said.

June tried to give Lipton her best dismissive look, but he just waved Roe over closer.

“I’m, uh, training to be a medic,” said Roe in a low voice, June noticing some weird southern accent she’d never heard before. “Lemme take a look. Don’t want it to get infected,” he added awkwardly.

He motioned her to sit down, so she lowered herself to the floor right in front of Lipton’s bed, ignoring Lipton’s concerned glances. He had no right to be concerned. They’d probably all had to do this at the beginning of their training, anyway. June sighed, hoping and praying they weren’t so concerned because of her gender. She wasn’t going to accept handouts. She’d let Roe take a look and then she’d bandage it up and go to bed.

June fiddled with the laces, undoing the boots as much as they would go. She paused, but before anyone would notice her hesitation, she decided to rip each of her feet out of the boots in one go. She grunted, and it wasn’t as bad as she’d expected it to be. Her socks, not so much. Almost the entire sole of both socks were red, starkly contrasting to the white. Threads of red had bled up in the sock almost midway up. She rolled up her pant legs, faintly and incongruently glad that her legs were still shaved from the last time she’d showered, because Roe was awfully close, though he still acted distant.

Of all things, she was worried about that. 

“Who told ‘er she could break in boots on a ruck march?” said Tipper to Liebgott, just far away enough that June could pretend not to hear them. She started tugging off her socks, and realized they’d have to be peeled, because the volume of sticky blood and plasma had glued the wool to her foot. She worked the right sock off, feeling exposed. She looked over her shoulder. Lipton looked concerned. 

June was making trouble for the rest of them.

“You think Sobel would?” responded Liebgott, sitting down on his bed. 

Tipper sat for a minute. “Yeah, maybe,” he said flippantly. 

June realized she didn’t know the name of her commanding officer.

“What’s our CO’s name?” she half-whispered to Roe, who was looking rather helplessly at June’s right foot. June finally unstuck the sock from her joint wound and pulled off the sock. Her right foot was a mess of dried (and still wet) blood, and she saw the remains of the blister, cratered around raw skin missing more than a few layers.

He started. 

“Is it Sobel?” asked June, trying not to wince every time she touched the wounds.

Roe nodded silently, eyes still affixed to the blood. 

“Look, I don’t wanna keep you guys up,” said June. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You need foot powder and some plasters,” said Roe, as if he hadn’t heard what June said. “I got some.” He walked back to his bed, pulling a larger aid bag from his trunk and setting it beside June, crouching down. “Go outside and clean it off,” he said. “You got water, right?”

June felt around for her canteen, and shook it. It was a third full. 

“Hey, ain’t it lights out?” said Guarnere, who had stayed curiously silent throughout the entire post-march conversation. “We got a few hours until we gotta wake up again.”

No one argued. Martin turned off the lights and June moved outside to pour water over her blisters. Two more canteens appeared by her side, and she wondered who they belonged to. 

When she got back inside, she fumbled around, hitting someone as she felt for a space to deposit the empty canteens. She fished out her lighter and flicked off the top, and the light revealed Roe, who was still waiting for her. He dropped some bandages and a few plasters into her lap and silently disappeared into the darkness. June dumped her ruined socks in the rubbish bin and tiptoed back to her bed, already hearing that some of the men were asleep. She wrapped her feet in the dark, fiddling for a bit with the lighter before giving up and doing it by touch, the exposed skin stinging whenever she brushed her finger over it. June didn’t know how much time she had to sleep, but she lay down and finally fell asleep within a few seconds of her head hitting the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus begins the pain train. 
> 
> It doesn't really get better from here, but there's the light at the end of the tunnel. Albeit a very long tunnel filled with both physical and emotional s u f f e r i n g.


	5. Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Saturday.

June was expecting to get only one hour of sleep, but she ended up getting two, which she thought she should take as a mercy. She wasn’t a light sleeper, but her body was on high alert. She woke up as soon as the first man in the billet was up and moving around – Malarkey, it looked like, in his PT gear. 

June knew she wasn’t going to get any more rest, so she sat up in bed, rubbing at her eyes and remembering instantly her boots and her socks, and most importantly, her blisters. She pushed back the sheet and stared in horror at her own feet, seeing in full morning light for the first time just how bad it was. She put her head in her hands and moaned quietly. Her watch said 0524. She had an hour before Reveille. June had a suspicion that Reveille was wake-up, but she hadn’t asked anyone to confirm. It would be a mystery until then, only a word on the small schedule leaflet Coates had given to her on the first day.

Malarkey looked up for a few seconds and put his head back down. He was cleaning his rifle, June realized. A bird or two twittered outside, and the hum of a plane from the airfield rose quietly in the distance. The sound of almost-silence in the morning contrasted greatly with the usual midday chaos of the camp she’d experienced the previous day.

She hauled her legs over the side of the bed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose tiredly. Two hours of sleep might have been okay for one night, but if every day was like this, she’d have to adapt quickly. 

Skinny, two or three feet away in his cot, was fast asleep. June’s bed was very close enough to his – all the beds were, because the space between them was small and the billets were designed to be packed. She could make out his form, face turned away, snoring lightly. 

Roe was particularly sprawled out, with a pale leg hanging off the side of the narrow bed and an arm thrown across his eyes. Liebgott looked almost peaceful, except for his mouth hanging open. June curiously glanced at the other men who were still asleep: some of their faces lost half their severity when they weren’t conscious, and June wondered if it was a different world, and she’d met them under different circumstances, they’d all look softer and brighter. 

June put weight on her feet lightly and almost cursed. They hurt, but she suspected the added volume of the bandages wouldn’t help if she tried to put her feet back into the boots. She rewrapped her feet before she got out of bed, pulling her only two bandages from her own aid kit and padding the area with cotton pads. It was neater than before, and felt the slightest bit better. 

June predicted she was going to have to run later that day. With a groan, she hefted herself off the bed, settling onto her blisters, and she made for the door. The bloody heel marks were still in the wood, and June wondered if it was irreparably stained since the floor was just planks of raw plywood. Her boots were sitting by the door, and they had left two red-brown imprints overnight. There was a slight stickiness when June lifted the boots off, and she cringed, holding the boots at eye-level. She’d have to wash them off, thoroughly, otherwise she’d have rotting blood in them. But they needed time to dry, so she couldn't clean them now. She’d have to wait until after supper. So she went outside to sit on the skinny elevated ledge outside the billet with her boots, closing the door as carefully as possible. She was still in her ODs, never having changed out of them from the previous night. 

She set the boots on the ground in front of her, sighing. She pulled her ravaged feet up into her lap as she stared, cross-legged, at the boots. She leaned over to wipe the sides of the boots weakly against the small tufts of grass. The blood was dried-on, and there was nothing to do except to give them a thorough rinse. June didn't even think about going to the depot to ask for replacements. These were her paratrooper boots, and she’d already done the work of starting to wear them in the previous night. 

The sound of footfalls walking towards June sounded from a few billets down, and June looked up in time to see two officers leave their billet and come walking down the path. June waited for a bit, hoping they’d turn off in another direction. She had no such luck. The two continued to move in her direction, and June heaved out a breath, shoved her bloodied boots back on, and fumbled her way up to standing. The leather on the boots was just dark enough to hide the stains – or at least she hoped. 

June wondered what her hair looked like, and she flipped both braids to the front, feeling for any flyaways. It didn’t matter at that point, anyway, so she gave up. 

The officers stopped in front of the billet. June snapped to attention, jamming her heels together in a painfully sharp movement, and holding her arm aloft at attention. 

“As you were, Private,” the light-haired officer said in a vaguely familiar voice. June dropped her arm and relaxed only a smidge, widening her stance to something slightly more comfortable. One of the two officers was Nixon, who wore his signature smirk at the sight of June. 

“I see you’ve got it down already,” he said, looking slightly smug for no reason. The other man – red-haired and somehow more dignified-looking, with sharper creases on his service uniform – looked at Nixon quickly before looking back at June. 

“I do believe this is the first time we meet formally, Private Diedtrich,” he said. “Second Lieutenant Winters.” He offered a hand for June to shake.

June nodded. “Nice to meet you, sir,” she said, and almost shook his hand before noticing there were smears of blood on the tips of her fingers. They must have gotten there when she’d been pulling on her boots again. Her face heated. “Sorry, sir,” she said quickly, pulling back, looking at his hand. 

“Are you injured, Private?” Winters said, almost sounding concerned. June looked quickly at the blood tracking inside the billet on the steps, and looked away just as fast, hoping he didn’t follow her gaze. 

“No, sir,” she said. 

Winters was observant, unfortunately, and followed the movement. He looked at June quizzically, and his eyes flicked down to look at her boots. She shifted under the scrutiny, unintentionally creating a small streak of red on the wood platform. Apparently the grass hadn’t taken all of the bloody bits off the rubber treads.

Nixon looked at the scene with a detached interest.

“What happened, Private?” Winters asked. 

“I have to break in these boots, sir,” June said, not wanting to give away the severity of the blisters, though most of the damage had probably been done. The blood trails made it look worse. “It’s not as bad as it looks, sir.”

“Must be pretty bad, then,” Nixon commented. Winters glared at him, and he snorted briefly. “What?”

Winters ignored Nixon. “Take a break, Diedtrich. You have all weekend to heal up.”

June nodded. “Sir.”

“See you later, Private,” Winters said. June straightened and gave another salute, cringing as her heels knocked together again. Winters gave her a nod and another backward glance before continuing with Nixon down the line of billets.

When they had disappeared down the aisle, June sighed and sagged against the billet wall. She looked down at her boots. Weak, indeed. She couldn’t go one day without being minorly injured and then tracking bodily fluids all over the camp. 

June suddenly realized something Winters had said. Weekend. That meant it was already… Saturday. 

If June had any luck at all, it had been used up completely to give her not one, but two free days before she’d have to start running again. 

She gave herself a shake. _The weekend_. June smiled, because there wasn’t anyone else around. She allowed herself a few seconds of basking, and then went back into the billet, dampening her smile a little bit so hopefully no one would notice.

The billet was in high spirits anyway, or at least half it was. Some men were changing into their service uniforms sullenly, while others looked relatively happy. June blinked. About five or so men were bare-chested as they pulled dress shirts on. She looked down at the billet floor as she made her way to the bed, trying not to look, dodging men hopping into their trousers. They moved out of the way without commenting.

“At least he didn’t revoke the whole platoon’s passes this time,” Liebgott said, thrusting an arm through his uniform dress shirt. “Just a few.”

“A few?” Guarnere repeated. “Over half of us can’t go out.”

“Be happy that you can, Bill,” Tipper said angrily. He belted his pants jerkily. “Sobel hasn’t given me a weekend off base for as long as I can remember.”

Guarnere seemed to consider that for a moment, and then he fixed his garrison cap, tilting it to the side. “More dames for me,” he said, aiming for the door. 

“Ain’t got no dames to get if Tipper didn’t have one in the first place,” Skip said, and the men all laughed uproariously. 

“Hey,” Tipper tried, but Guarnere gave him a nasty-looking smile and disappeared out the billet door. June tried to hide her smile, so she looked hard at the floor, pushing her lips together. She remembered in high school when she and her girl friends would give a limb to see into the minds of men. Well, here she was in the thick of it. She tried not to laugh. 

With the men distracted with changing around her, June squatted down and pulled her suitcase out from under her bed, eyeing her options. If she was going to change into her service uniform, she’d be wearing her shirt – a man’s shirt, but with a women’s fit. June had tried not to sacrifice any functionality, but she’d gotten the shirt tailored anyway, because it _was_ her dress outfit. Did this require her to wear a girdle? She would have usually done so in civilian life, but now everything was different. June couldn’t shake the insecurity that Sobel would show up unannounced at the half-filled billet and command them to take a five-mile run, even though she knew the weekends were the only time men got for breaks. She looked around. Most of the men looked relaxed. The billet door swung open every few minutes as another man got changed and headed for the bus.

June had tried to keep the contents of her suitcase hidden, but it was inevitable that in close quarters, someone would see. She looked over her shoulder just in time to catch Penkala peering over her bed and into her things. June shut the suitcase when she saw him craning slightly as he fiddled with his tie. 

She didn’t know what to do, because she couldn’t say anything for fear of attracting more attention. June just summoned her best icy stare and looked long enough for Penkala to get uncomfortable. It worked, because he coughed and turned away. June looked around, making sure no one else had seen. All seemed normal.

The sudden sight of Penkala’s stare had unsettled June. She decided to get changed in the women’s bathroom. She packed up some pins and her makeup in a small bag, and decided against the girdles, taking the service uniform with her. 

June knew that some of the reserve ladies in the Marines and some of the WACs did physical work while still wearing lipstick and pins. June didn’t think she could – or would – do any of that, even on the weekends, but she was going to do something with her mess of hair, at least. 

It took some maneuvering to find her way back to the secretary office, dodging small packs of men – all of whom were already dressed in their service uniforms. June walked fast enough that it wouldn’t seem unnatural when she ignored the men, especially when a few yelled something to her. It was offensive, and June sped up even more, feet rubbing against the insides of her boots, taking the pain over the potential humiliation any day. The field blurred by in her peripheral vision, men running around a makeshift baseball diamond that she almost missed. She was almost running by the time she got to the office, feet chafed and sore, padded only minorly by the extra bandages. 

She came to the front of the office, and then walked around the side. It seemed empty today – the women were all probably off work on Sundays and Saturdays – and she ducked under a few overgrown trees to find the bathroom in a bungalow in the back, surrounded by brush. It looked like the other buildings: newly-built, paint splatters still speckling the ground where the walls met the dirt.

June approached the front door, jiggling the doorknob. She hoped, prayed to God that someone had left the door unlocked. The handle unstuck, squeaking on messily crusting paint around its socket. The door gave. June peered inside and felt for a light switch. She found one and switched it on. 

The faint buzzing lights were not bright, but the bathrooms looked at least moderately clean. June happily closed the door, excited to have a bathroom all to herself. The minor perks didn’t outweigh the huge mountain she’d have to climb, but _damn_ , was it nice. Sharing latrines with the men would have sent June packing.

There were about four narrow stalls separated by painted plywood, the barriers short enough to peer over. The last stall in the rightmost corner was a shower. A small mirror was propped up on the counter, where there was a single sink and a bar of soap. The ceiling was low, and the wiring for the lights hung low in some corners of the room. A small square of sunlight came into the room by way of a window positioned high over the door.

She changed quickly, still affected by some sense of urgency that she hadn’t been able to shake since first encountering Sobel. He was like an apparition in June’s mind – the loud voice had pierced its way into her brain, following her constantly. She was in fear, she realized: always thinking about him, even though all he’d done was yell and revoke her weekend pass, which she had discovered was a signature and customary move. He hadn’t really singled her out as she’d told herself. June sighed. This was the equal treatment she’d wanted, and it was her responsibility to get used to Sobel, like everyone else had to.

She pulled her feet out of her boots quickly, telling herself she wasn’t doing herself any favors by going slow. It was the same wound, whether or not she handled her feet roughly. She grunted a bit, maneuvering her feet on the floor, and pulled off her PT shorts and her t-shirt. 

She took a second look at the last stall. The shower was probably never used. She crept closer, pulling on the handle of the shower. It took some time, but the shower turned on with a dribble, turning into a weak stream. 

June looked back at her clothes, and then at the shower. She hadn’t brought soap, but she’d go for a rinse. 

A few minutes later, June realized she had no towel, and that her wet, bare feet were going to have to stand on the floor. She was already in the shower, scrubbing at her scalp in the gentle patter of water. She sighed, turned the water off, and stood dripping for a few minutes, wondering what she’d do. She squeezed a large volume of water out of her hair, looking at her pile of clothing. 

June looked resignedly at her clothes. Considering the amount of time it took for her to put on her underclothes – damn the straps and clips and hooks – she might air-dry by the time she had to put the stuff back on. 

June’s theory was correct. She was almost sweating in the room made hotter by the steam of the shower by the time she’d gotten her bra, panties, and PT shirt back on. The shorts would probably show under the trousers, so she left them off to the side. 

June’s wet hair was going to leave wet spots on her uniform. Her towel was back at the billet, so she squeezed it again and twisted it into a tight bun at the base of her neck. She quickly put on the trousers and wrapped her feet up again with the bandages. June would have to go about getting new ones soon. She wrinkled her nose but shoved her feet back into the cursed boots, knowing her feet were never going to be truly clean as long as the boots were bloody. 

After she buttoned up her shirt, did her best with the tie, and tucked her shirt into the trousers, June threaded the belt into her pants and stood in front of the tiny mirror, running a hand through the front of her hair, which was shamefully unstyled and still sodden. 

June didn’t want to cut it. But she might have to. She told herself if her hair gave her any trouble in the coming week, she’d have to chop off most of the length, all the way to her collarbones. That cut in itself was drastic, even though June had seen some women in the movies with super-short cuts. It still didn’t appeal to her.

June took a look at her makeup bag and gave in, putting on mascara so she didn’t feel too unkempt. She looked at the lipstick for a few beats, and then dropped it back into the bag. She wasn’t going to wear it again in front of the men. 

_Respect. Demand it_ , she echoed inside her own head.

She straightened, looked at herself in the foggy mirror, and saw herself looking almost like a man in the service uniform save for her bust, her eyes, and her waist – which was a waist size some of the skinnier men could rival, June knew. 

This was what she’d wanted – to be one of them. If she looked the part, she hoped it would be a tad easier. 

♤

When June came back out of the bathroom, she nervously cast a glance around to see if anyone was nearby. She laced her boots, gathered up her clothes from the counter, and went out the door, closing it carefully behind her, trying to walk fast to the billet before her hair deposited more dampness down her shirt. A trickle traced its way along her spine, and June marched faster, ducking through the trees to circumvent the main path and go straight to the billets. 

June was hoping and begging for Sobel not to be nearby. He somehow seemed to be the scariest thing June could imagine, and the worst possible scenario was if Sobel was somewhere along the path, waiting to encounter her on her way back. 

Just as she had pushed Sobel out of her mind for more than a few seconds, a tall, dark, skulking officer materialized on the side of the pathway. June’s stomach dropped.

It was him. 

June considered hurrying off the path, but Sobel already saw her, and looked to be coming towards her instead of whatever destination he had planned. How he was the first one June encountered, she didn’t know, but she debated what to do, thoughts running in and out of her head a mile a minute. There were no options to be had, so when Sobel was within twenty or so feet, June let go of whatever hope she had left and dumped her clothes on the dirt, as neatly as she could, tucking the ODs around her other items. 

She stood at attention, raising her right arm in salute and standing straight. The dress shirt pulled slightly at her shoulders, and June thought belatedly that maybe the tailoring had been too extreme.

“June,” Sobel barked, already sour about something this early in the morning. 

“Sir,” June said, looking straight forward and avoiding his eyes. 

“What are you doing with your clothes in the dirt, Private?” Sobel demanded, voice already rising in volume. 

June was at a loss, like she always was whenever Sobel came around. “No excuse, sir,” she spat out. 

Sobel considered this, looking at the pile of clothes.

 _Don’t do it_ , thought June, watching him circle her and the clothes. _Don’t_. _Please_.

Sobel nudged the pile with his boot, not exactly kicking it but spreading some of the contents of the pile into the dirt. 

“Get your goddamn clothes off the ground, June,” Sobel said with a disgusted tone. “They’d better be clean when I see you again. Your weekend pass for the next week and the week after is revoked.” Then he left as abruptly as he’d appeared, not bothering to tell June to stand at ease. She stood that way for a full minute after he stalked away, half-expecting him to come back after she’d relaxed and yell some more. When it looked like he wouldn’t come back, June dropped her arm. Only a few men had coincidentally been around, but the ones who had been in their billets nearby probably heard the entire exchange. 

June gathered up her things, dusting some of them off and bundling them into a smaller unit to carry. She didn’t look at the men nearby, and she didn’t acknowledge anything. She simply walked the road back to her billet, got inside, and shut the door. 

♤

Only a few men were in the billet still. Grant and Martin huddled quietly in their places by the door, talking over a card game. But some new faces surprised June, and she watched two more new men in the back corner of the billet with Tipper, smoking. 

June hoped they would just ignore her, though she was quickly learning that a hope like that was not realistic. She wished if they wanted to acknowledge her presence, someone would introduce her. But she kept her mouth shut and tried to ignore the prickly feeling of eyes on the back of her neck, putting her back to the three men in the corner.

She riffled through her trunk, finding the towel and throwing it over her shoulders, undoing her hair and spreading it out. Her hair would take thirty minutes or an hour to fully dry, so she’d just have to stay like that. June also dumped the clothes on her bed, looking disapprovingly at the dustiness. She took a few minutes to shake them off outside the billet, going in and out as quietly as she could, but still aware she was making noise. When she came in for the last time, Grant cast an irritated glance in her direction. 

“Hey, Diedtrich,” Martin said. 

She turned around, and he pointed to the door with his cards. “Could you not do that?”

“Yeah, sure. Sorry,” she said, after coughing on her dry throat, the notion of anyone talking directly to her now a rare thing. 

Martin nodded absently, looking back at the cards. June rubbed at her forehead and went back to her bed, putting her clothes where they needed to be. She sat silently for a few minutes, staring at the wall, buttoning and unbuttoning her shirt cuffs. Then she got around to pulling off her boots again for the third time that day, gritting her teeth as the leather bit into her feet. 

June originally thought that it had stopped bleeding, but the bandages were showing tiny pinpricks of red soaking through on her right heel. She took a steadying breath and peeled the side of the bandage off, assessing the damage. There was a lot more blood, probably from her accelerated walk away from Sobel. 

June looked at Grant and Martin, who were muttering over the deck on the floor between them. She didn’t want to bother anyone for any more bandages. She leaned over in her bed, looking in her aid kit in her trunk. She had no more bandages, as she originally thought. Grant and Martin had already given her more death glares than she needed in one hour.

She didn’t want to bother Tipper, either, especially now that he was with more people who were just going to stare at her if she tried to talk to him. Worse, Tipper might be hostile because June knew people tended to be worse when they had some kind of reputation to uphold. 

Well, June had a reputation to uphold, and it required her feet not getting infected. 

“Hey, Tipper?” June said, hoping he would just give in and give her the bandages.

Tipper ignored her, doing whatever he had been doing with the other men. One of them turned around, jabbing Tipper in the side. 

“What?” Tipper said, darkly. 

June wanted to recoil, but she stood her ground. “You know where I can find more bandages?”

Tipper looked at the blood and then up at the ceiling, sighing. “Aid station. It’s next to HQ,” he said with as little effort as possible, settling into his bed. He was not going to offer help, and it was all the same to June. She resolutely started to rewrap her foot.

“Tipper, what are you gonna do, make her walk all the way to the aid station? It’s a half-mile away,” came a voice from one of the two new men at Tipper’s bed. 

June looked up, eyes narrowing. Tipper was going to make her walk, and June would be glad to get away from everyone else. 

“I got extra bandages,” said the guy to the right of Tipper. June looked distrustfully at the guy. It was a joke, probably. Tipper raised an eyebrow at the guy, probably thinking the same thing. 

June started to wrap her foot in double-time, and shoved her feet back into her boots, pulling at the laces roughly. “Thanks, but I’m going to the aid station,” she said, standing up. 

“Stop, stop,” the new guy said, looking a little bit concerned. “I’m getting them.” To June’s shock, and to the shock of all the other men, the guy stood up and walked out to the door of the billet, past June.

He turned around suddenly. “I’m George Luz.” June opened her mouth to return the greeting. “I already know who you are,” Luz said with a crooked smile. And he disappeared out the door, leaving it swinging, the crunch of his steps fading away.

June didn’t know what to do. She sat down, stunned, on her bed. 

“Shoot, look at him go,” Grant said sarcastically. Everyone looked at June again. She checked her watch to give herself something to do. It was about 6:30. She needed to get some food. 

The crunch of boots sounded right outside the windows, and the billet door swung open again, bouncing off the wall with the force that Luz pushed it open. He grasped an aid kit, and June was mildly surprised that he’d actually gotten the bandages for her.

“That was fast, George,” said the other unknown man beside Tipper, smiling.

“Shut up, Tab,” George said across the billet. “There should be more extra bandages in there,” he said, giving June the aid kit. He didn’t toss it to her, which was nice. “Your feet okay?”

June was overloaded with this much conversation aimed at her in one minute, after the day of silence in her billet the previous day. “Yeah,” she said quietly, watching Luz casually saunter back to his place beside Tipper and… Tab. Just Tab? Probably a nickname. 

She changed the bandages on her foot with the fresh ones from Luz’s aid kit, and winced, peeling the old dried blood off her skin. She looked up, sensing Luz staring at her. He looked away pointedly, and June brushed it off. There was a quiet snicker from Tipper’s corner, though, and she started to entertain the notion that Luz’s intentions weren’t completely pure despite his open demeanor. 

She emptied his kit of bandages, feeling bad for doing so. After her feet were done, she pulled her spare pair of socks from her trunk and slipped them on, and then jammed her feet into the boots, pulling the laces up tight. Much better. 

June stood up, flexing her ankles within the boots and bending her knees slightly. They weren’t broken in yet, but she they would be soon. 

She walked cautiously towards the end of the billet with the aid kit. “Um… thank you,” June said, holding the aid kit out for Luz to take back. He took it with a seemingly benign smile, and June withheld a smile back. He was being too friendly, but she passed it off as simple kindness. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. 

June went back to her cot, squeezing her hair with her towel. It was only half-dry, but she pushed the back of her hair into a twist, setting it with pins. There was nothing to be done with the front half, because none of it was dry enough to maintain any stiff pinning. She just rolled the rest behind her ears and tied a headscarf over it all, hoping she looked presentable. 

She blew out a heavy breath, smoothed down the creases in her shirt, and retrieved her garrison cap, tilting it the slightest bit to the right. She stood up, not feeling right, and took the cap back off, looking at it in her hands. The silhouette of a parachute stood out white against the brown patch background, marking the hat as belonging to a paratrooper. She brushed the patch with her thumb. 

Colonel Sink’s parting words came back to June unexpectedly. _You must earn it_.

She placed the cap gently into her trunk, and closed the lid, and then walked out of the billet. 

She was not ready to face the mess hall, but she was going there anyway. 

She was hungry.

♤

The mess hall was somehow even more menacing than the previous night. June hovered a few paces back, watching men filter in and out. When all of them were in their service uniforms, June was again reminded that each man had his own personality, his own history, and his own reason for being at Toccoa. 

She took a breath and walked quickly to the entrance, trying to erase her memories of the previous night. A fresh start. This would be better, more calm. Today, she wasn’t going to attract as much attention because about half the men were in town.

With her head down, she stepped inside the mess hall, which was somehow exactly as full as it had been the previous day. So much for weekend passes. June sneaked a few glances over the hall. There were a few empty spots, but not exactly where she’d sat the day before. She moved into the chow line, grabbing a tray. The problem of sitting was going to be constant, so she needed to figure out a plan. 

After getting her food from the soldiers on kitchen duty – who treated her with unwelcoming looks – June stood in the small space between the counter and the network of tables, looking for the most unobtrusive spot she could claim. There was about a half a table empty backed up to the end of the dining hall, so June went towards it, dodging men. 

At a certain point, she was bound to be noticed. The louder tone of the hall became replaced with whispers as eyes flicked between her and her food. June affixed her eyes to the table, and it grew closer and closer. The volume in the hall had fallen to about half. The eyes of the room were on her.

June’s heart picked up speed, and a blush spread across her face at all the attention. Her hands were holding the tray, so there was no shake, but once she made it to the table and set her tray down, her fingers were stuck in a tremor against her will. She laid her hands flat on her thighs under the table, trying to get them to stop. 

The two men that were already at the table got up and left. June was left with an empty spot, and she picked up her fork. 

She looked up at the room. No one was bothering her, but everyone was looking. Looking at every part of her that was visible.

June wanted badly to stand up and slam her fork down. _Is this how it’s gonna be?_ she’d yell over the crowd. _Are you gonna stare at me every single meal? Look at yourselves_ , she’d say, and then all the men would realize how absolutely stupid and boneless and _predatory_ they were being, and like gentlemen, they’d endeavor respectfully to stop. And maybe she’d get apologies.

But since she couldn’t just up and yell, because she was one of _them_ , the men, she sat and did what they were all supposed to do: eat. 

Thankfully, the mess hall was about halfway back to normal when June left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're enjoying this so far. In about two chapters, things are going to pick up! In the meantime, please tell me if you like the fic, the character, and the plot so far :)


	6. Doing Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June runs errands and fills her weekend with activity. Some are productive. Some are less pleasant.

The weekend had passed slowly, with most of the time consisting of June pretending to sleep in her billet, watching but not really talking with any of her platoon, and of one instance where she tried to run and found that her feet were far from healed that Saturday night. After about half a mile around the track, June couldn’t take it anymore and decided not to risk any more injury. She’d come back to the billet around the same time as she had on her first day, and most of the men were back from their trip out to Atlanta. 

Skip, Malarkey, and Penkala were regaling the rest of the billet with their story of questionable decisions and hunting for broads. June felt bad for interrupting – the men were having fun, after all – but a few moments after she came into the billet, loaded glances fading, Malarkey continued his monologue, eliciting raucous laughter from the other men, Lipton included. 

June noticed that the other men presumed some illusion of normalcy by usually ignoring her completely. That was fine with her. She preferred to keep to herself if any other interactions were going to make her nervous and the others feel awkward. 

She would be a paratrooper if she survived this. Hopefully by then she’d have built up enough trust for them to trust her as a fellow soldier. June couldn’t even imagine that, though – she didn’t even know what was coming for her day by day.

At the end of the day, after Malarkey finally finished his accident-fraught adventure story, June had gotten to her bed and found a small pile of supplies carefully lined up on top of her folded sheets. There were extra bandages, more plasters, a few packets of something… foot power, it said on the package. There were a few more cotton dressings in paper packages. She sorted through the pile, finding most of the items in excess. 

She looked up, finding Roe in his bed already. He was watching her, but when she turned her head, she caught him hastily looking down at whatever he was sorting through in his medical kit. 

June smiled to herself for only a few seconds, and put the rest of the supplies back into her trunk. 

Then came the trouble of changing. June had her PT shirt already on under her dress shirt, and she unbuttoned the top after taking the tie off. When she got to the lowest button, she remembered that she had no PT shorts on underneath. She sat down, conflicted. 

June had seen endless hours of opportunity pass by during the day. Any time, she could have changed back in the bathroom, but she was here now and she really didn’t feel like making the trek in the dark, with the opportunity of meeting other men on the road who would see her in the shorts. She missed her opportunity when she brushed her teeth about thirty minutes before. She jammed her fingers into her eye sockets, rubbing stressfully. June would just change here, and make it quick.

It was flawed logic, but if all the other men got to stand around in their underwear, so did June.

June found her PT shorts, set them on the bed, and unbuckled her belt, hoping that the long tail on her open button-down would cover her ass. She took off her boots – which she’d rubbed at, hit, and knocked together earlier in the day to get as much of the flaking blood off as she could. She undid the zipper and pulled her trousers down, sitting on the bed instantly and pulling the ends off her legs. 

She pulled on the shorts as fast as she could and looked around. If anyone had been looking, now they were not. June had no way to know how many people had taken a good look at her behind. She guessed all of them, at some point. She’d only been there for a little bit over 24 hours and she was already losing count. She tried to push the considerations from her mind. They didn’t matter when she couldn’t do anything about it anyway.

June hung up and folded her clothes as best she could, and sat on the bed, peeling back the bandages to take another look. There was no new blood, just some plasma, and she took it as a good sign. She’d also stopped trekking blood everywhere she stepped, which was a small grace. The humiliation of tracking red footprints into the dining hall would have been a disaster.

She sat quietly, watching the men. They laughed, talked, and smoked – all together, like a huge family. She supposed the platoon was supposed to be close like a brotherhood; maybe the entire company itself would become that close eventually. June was aware of accounts of the Great War, and she’d read about the brotherly bonds of war that men grew during times of dire survival: the times that made humanity almost a thing to be grasped in the midst of suffering.

She wondered if she’d ever make it that far. Would she ever be thrown into active combat? The blood and the guts?

June knew she was stupid to jump at a chance that only promised death, violence, and pain. There was a certain nimbus of glory surrounding it, though: no soldier would ever volunteer if not for it. 

June’s attention was wrenched back to the men. They looked so comfortable in this camp called Toccoa. They knew each other, and they would keep getting to know each other better. June wondered if she’d stay permanently stalled in a state of separation. Forever. It certainly seemed foolhardy to count on anything better to develop.

She watched a few men playing cards at Guarnere’s bed, some of them exploding with laughter and shouts of playful protest when Hanson slammed down a card. Roe mostly kept to himself, but she saw that he was part of the group, too, by some silent respect – Lipton dropped by his bed to throw him a cigarette and Roe flashed him a brief smile of gratitude. Malarkey, Skip, and Penkala were gathered around Malarkey’s bed. Tipper and Liebgott were talking about something, maybe fiddling with a couple of dice. 

June caught Perconte looking furtively over his shoulder, and he made brief accidental eye contact with June, then put his head back down in the huddle that had grown around Hanson. June wondered what they were talking about. Maybe they were discussing her. It wouldn’t be anything new if they were. Grant dug something out of his pocket, throwing it into the center. 

Bets?

They were probably making bets. June was willing to put a good twenty on the line that the bets were on her. Maybe when she’d drop out. Worse, maybe they were betting on who would _get_ her first. June’s eyebrows came together as she watched the gathering of men, and she turned away, not wanting to look intrusive. 

Maybe it wasn’t betting. Maybe the men were just so bored and rowdy that they were willing to defy Camp regulations to be gambling in their own billets on dice and poker.

June was starting to feel hot and fidgety. The air was turning stuffy, and she got up, ignoring the looks that occurred whenever she did anything, and retrieved a blank slip of paper and a pen from her footlocker. She tried to think that the stares didn’t tend to intensify whenever she turned around and bent down, but she straightened and more than a few eyes averted themselves unnaturally fast. June made for the front of the billet, skirting around sprawled-out legs and men sitting on the floor. 

The cooler clean-smelling air of the night hit her, and she breathed deeply. 

The small platform outside the billet still had small red scuffs on it. June looked at the marks with minor disgust and sat down on the far left of the narrow ledge, avoiding the stiffened blood. 

The elevation of the billet was just high enough that she could swing her legs off the panel. Taller men like the one beside her during the march could probably touch the ground with their feet sitting there. June was markedly shorter than most of them, standing inches below average. Perconte was the closest in height, but he was most likely one or a half inch taller than her. If there was a minimum height requirement for jumping out a plane, June must have barely cleared it. She huffed a laugh to herself, which was more of a scoff, and held the empty piece of paper up in front of her. 

Who would she write to? What would she even say? If she decided to send a letter to Florence, what would she tell her? _Dear Florence, I’m already more of an outcast here than we were on our first day of West Point, and all the men do is either ignore me or stare at my ass_.

Florence wouldn’t like the use of an expletive. _My behind_ , June amended. This was ridiculous.

June rubbed at her neck, thinking. She could write home. In a few months, James was going to turn eighteen. He was raring to join the war, and probably wouldn’t be stopped by either of their parents. It was a terrible feeling that June felt when she imagined the empty house – just her mother and her father, with empty beds and empty chairs. No one running about the house, yelling, or clattering up and down the stairway; banging doors and laughter. At least they’d have Sharon around. She would always hang around, her overwhelming concern keeping her fussing and bustling. Sometimes it seemed like Sharon was the oldest, not June. 

June almost wanted to stop James from enlisting. _Go to officer school first_ , she wanted to say. James wouldn’t listen, probably. He was too much like herself, and he’d try to get into the fray as soon as possible, just like all the other young men who were piling up on the beaches all over the Pacific. James kept talking about enlisting with the Marines. Their mother would try to talk him out of it, maybe Dad would try to get him to go with the Navy, where death wasn’t in the spray of bullets or the fragments of a mortar, but in the flames of burning engine oil and lapping waves of the endless sea. Men in the Navy were safe until they weren’t, and when they weren’t, some stray puttering of a dying engine from above the clouds could mean the difference between surviving the war and scuttling a destroyer. 

Was that better than dying on a beach, June wondered? Watching thousands of tons of groaning metal crumble into the sea instead of getting your insides chewed up and spat out by malaria and the rot of the pressing damp?

At least, that’s what June had heard, and what she’d read. She had no correspondence with any other Pacific soldiers. That neighbor who’d told her about how to handle the ODs back home – the one who had sat in her math classes and copied her homework in US History – he’d been deployed to some base in the void of the sea, nameless to the Americans who stayed on dry land. She’d never gotten a letter or anything back. 

She didn’t know whether Everett Fletcher was killing Japs yet or sitting miserably in dank barracks in the center of a monsoon. That was okay. They’d never been close or anything, she told herself.

June leaned back, her head hitting the billet wall, and she closed her eyes, thumping her head repeatedly against the wood. How did she get here? She stared at the empty piece of paper again, and for some strange reason, she didn’t think of her family or of her West Point classmates. Her mind latched back onto the idea of Everett, and it was easier somehow writing to a boy she never got to know instead of lying on paper about how normal her abnormal situation was to her parents. 

She scribbled a few lines of formality after the greeting line, and avoided talking about her own situation, instead writing out a few simple questions. She thought against all of them, scratching them out on the paper and leaving only two.

_What’s it like?_

_How are you?_

She signed the bottom without fanfare or title, going with only her name. 

_June Diedtrich_.

After reading it over a few more times by the light of the window above, June carefully folded the paper into thirds and stilled, looking out at the stars over Toccoa through gaps between billets, and listening to the cicadas chirp from their hidden spots in the grass and between concrete blocks.

“That you, Diedtrich?” came a voice from startlingly near June, and she almost jumped, turning to find a familiar face in the darkness, barely illuminated by the yellow light of the billet, only a few feet away. There were sergeant chevrons lined up on his uniform sleeve. When June didn’t say anything, he shifted. “Forget about me already?”

“Sergeant Coates?” June said out of shock, stumbling to her feet.

“That’s me,” he said lightly. A silence stretched on for a few beats. “Don’t stand on my account.”

June sat back down, crossing her legs self-consciously in the cursed shorts.“Why are you out here, sir?” asked June. 

“I’m just taking a walk around,” he said. “I hear your CO makes you do a ruck march every Friday night.”

June stared forward, feeling like the dark added some kind of impersonality to their conversation, like it wasn’t completely real when they couldn’t actually see each other. “He does, sir.”

Coates gave her a small _hmm_ and looked on in companionable silence. There wasn’t a lot to say. June knew he wanted to ask how she was doing, but she knew that he also didn’t ask because it would be better not to. If he knew things were bad, June wondered just how far news about her traveled, and to what degree.

Was he betting in the pools, too? June wouldn’t have faulted him for it. It was a good way to make money, because the odds were perfect and exciting. Ideal betting odds.

She reconsidered it, hating that she’d even thought that he would take part in such activities. Coates was probably the only enlisted man in the Camp who wouldn’t.

He noticed the paper and pen. “Who are you writing to, if you don’t mind me asking?” said Coates. 

“A friend,” June answered minimally. She didn’t want rumors circulating about the material she was writing, or who she was writing to.

“Oh,” Coates said. June nodded. Without things to do and places to be, somehow the words weren’t coming so easily this time around. “Well, uh…” he said, after looking emptily at June for a few moments, waiting for her to say something else. “If that’s all, have a good night, Private.”

June was secretly glad the conversation was over because of that jumpy feeling, but some part of her wished he would stay longer. She would never ask, though, and she swallowed the smidge of disappointment with a dull smile. “Good night, sir,” she responded, jumping off the platform to stand, because she still felt disrespectful sitting while he stood. 

He nodded almost imperceptibly in the low light and disappeared between the billets of the 2nd Platoon. 

June figured it was time to go back inside, but before she stood up to go to the billet door, she heard more footsteps. Three pairs, in fact – all headed her way. 

She turned around to get a better look. Leading the pack was Luz, and behind him was the guy who’d all but growled at her on the first day – Guarnere’s friend. And there was Talbert trailing behind. All three were still in service uniforms. June checked her watch in the glow of the billet. It was only a couple minutes to lights-out. 

As the trio got closer, June saw the tallest man in higher definition. He was dark-haired and rather scary-looking, with a resting face that all but promised death. She craned her head, trying to place the familiarity she felt, and then she understood. He was also the one who was marching next to her during the twelve-mile march. He’d kind of caught her when she’d tripped, too. June marveled at the opposite extremes of his personality. There was a small chance she was wrong about him being the man on the march, but she was almost sure.

Luz came closer and she could make out the side of his face, lifted in a grin. June hoped it wasn’t on account of her, but there really wasn’t another explanation. She hoped they weren’t going to try and come into the billet. 

They stopped outside the door. June would’ve sighed, but she stayed silent because she felt a little more uneasy around the tall one. He looked like he could break her neck in the blink of an eye. 

“Hey, Diedtrich,” Luz said. “How’s the foot?”

June noticed Talbert eyeing her legs, and she fingered her letter uncomfortably in her hands, looking down at the men from her perch on the ledge. 

“It’s fine,” she said. “Thanks,” she added, after a moment of indecision.

“That’s good,” Luz said, strangely pleasant. The two others made for the steps into the billet, but Luz made no effort to follow. Before the scary one followed Talbert inside, Luz grabbed him on the arm, forcing him to stop. The guy sighed in irritation. 

“This is Joe Toye,” Luz said, helpfully. “Joe, say hello to June.”

Toye looked at June, and she looked back to Luz. Toye grudgingly lifted a hand in greeting, muttering something akin to a greeting, meeting June’s eyes for a half-second. 

“Other one’s Floyd Talbert. People call him Tab,” Luz commented. 

June watched Toye go into the billet, door swinging shut behind him. 

“So, whatcha doin?” Luz said, stepping a few feet closer. June stepped back, placing an elbow on the wall. “Watching stars? Which one’s that?” he said without waiting for an answer. It was the brightest object in the southern half of the sky other than the moon. 

“Vega,” said June, quietly. Luz looked at her, delighted. 

“Damn. What about that one?” he said, sidling closer. June didn’t miss it. Something set her off about his errant, careless contentment with his place in the company: it was natural and friendly, though June could already tell some of the men found it tiring at time to keep up with his high-energy talkativeness. He just made her feel different. Different was bad. She wasn’t sure exactly what kind of different, but she wasn’t planning on dwelling on it for very long. 

When June didn’t answer, Luz looked at her, frowning. “Maybe we could move to another place, you know, uh… for a couple of minutes,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be better? Not a lotta people around, more quiet,” he said, trying to play a tone of nonchalance.

June swept a hand over her face, not affording Luz another glance, and looked out into the once-comforting silence that had turned stale, awkward. She pushed off from the wall and skirted him, going up to the door, watching his expression fade from vaguely entertained to something confused. “I don’t know any of the other stars,” she said tonelessly, before going inside and returning to her bed.

It vaguely registered to June that Toye and Tab were at the back of the billet, close with Guarnere, exchanging something with Tipper and Liebgott, and June tried to ignore them.

June had thought Luz might get moving back to his billet, but her hopes were evidently in vain. Just as she crouched down in front of her footlocker, going through the inside for an envelope, she heard the billet door open and close again. She resolutely kept her eyes affixed to the inside of the trunk, not wanting to signal to Luz that she was anywhere near interested. 

She felt him come up beside her, uncomfortably close. She kept sorting through her stuff, flicking an eye momentarily to the side to see his boots lined up to her right. There was still some possibility that he’d take the hint and walk away, and June opened another small bag, finding the envelopes. She had been leaning down for as long as she could possibly milk the situation for, and she took out an envelope, replacing the package in its place on the floor of her neatly organized locker with intentional slowness. Then, she straightened, closing the lid gently. 

“Do you stand this close to everyone?” she said under her breath to Luz, finally finding something to say. 

Luz didn't move. June’s heart rate picked up as she looked at his face quizzically, annoyed that she had to look up because he was a few inches taller. She squeezed her teeth together, looking hard at his face, hoping he’d get the message and not make a bigger deal out of it. The men were already watching, gauging how she’d respond. 

“Yeah, I do,” he said. 

June was suddenly angry. Luz didn’t get it. No one got it. Making trouble with her would result in a citation or a reprimand for the man, and a forced wash-out for June. She couldn’t punch, she couldn’t shout. Anything that would make the men inordinately angry would reflect badly on her. And it would stain her reputation forever if she was dropped from the Army because of something so tenuous like a fight, even if it was just verbal. She knew Sink would throw her out. The men would win if they rejected her over a conflict.

It was only the second day, and she was forced to make a decision.

She felt her hands squeeze into fists, and James’s voice telling her to _get ‘im before he can get you_ echoed in her head. She tensed, not knowing what Luz was going to do. He didn’t strike her as volatile, but she couldn’t be sure with any man. She’d try one more attempt at diplomacy.

“It’s time for lights-out soon,” she murmured. “Shouldn’t you be heading back to your billet?” she said, not looking at him. 

“Yeah, maybe I should,” he said in a suddenly light tone, but June knew it might be forced. “Toye, Tab,” said Luz over June’s shoulder. Neither Luz nor June had moved a step back. Men had strange ways of showing strength. June wasn’t going to back down, though. She was there to play the game. And it meant complying with masculine stereotypes of physical fortitude.

A low whistle came from the back of the billet. “Nice going, Luz,” came a sarcastic comment from someone, maybe Malarkey. June wasn’t sure how to take that comment, but it was fine. The remark wasn’t for her to react to.

June’s body had geared up for a fight, and she only relaxed when Luz left with the two others, leaving a gust of air in their wake and the sound of the door banging on the frame. June dropped the envelope, letter, and pen onto her bed and sat, never able to do anything about the persistent stares. 

She wanted to stand up and tell her billet to man up – stop tiptoeing around her while making her feel the most uncomfortable she had been in her life. The sustained tension that started when June had first encountered Guarnere on Friday had never stopped. In fact, it worsened with each hour as June could feel the men trying to find a boundary to draw lines between them and her – box her into an invisible closet that was easy to ignore. Either that or poke at her until she swung back. 

She wished she could escape the rest of the world; just shut it out for a few hours and forget that Luz was probably now harboring a grudge against her. Depending on how he told the story, the entire rest of his billet would be, too. Because it was always the woman’s fault for being hard-to-get.

June ran her hands through her hair. Hell, it had to be so difficult.

She curled up around the letter as she sat on the edge of the mattress, re-reading it twice more before stuffing it into an envelope. She’d find out Everett’s base address later, somehow. 

She didn’t notice that when she pulled her knees up and turned over the envelope in her hands, Lipton was keeping an eye on her from his corner. 

♤

Sunday was more of the same level of tension. Some of the men went to chapel, and June ended up going too, if only to occupy her mind a little bit. She didn’t dislike chapel, per se. It was a little bit more relaxing than any of the other heavily-congregated areas in camp, and she took the moment of preaching to slip into a daze that she’d never had the opportunity to have. 

She would never miss church, on principle, but this particular chapel session was so different that it took her a while to get used to. The minister droned in a predictable cadence of words, and she slipped into a mindless, meandering sequence of thought, holding her Bible in her lap and promising herself she’d check out Romans 14 later.

Chapel and breakfast were both surprisingly uneventful, though not without their standard share of unwanted attention and anxiety. Afterwards, June mailed the letter after finding a small slip of paper Everett had given her: she’d brought it with her because he’d written down a few notes that she had shoved between the pages of her Bible as a bookmark. At the bottom, there was a scrawl of address in case she needed to reach him, and she’d been reminded of it when she retrieved her Bible for Chapel. She sewed her private’s chevrons onto her sleeves after she managed to figure out the Army sewing kit she’d received with her standard-issue kit.

Then, she went to clean her boots. 

There was a spigot near the field where the men filled their canteens, and she brought her boots, soap, her towel, and a cleaning brush that she’d managed to scrounge somehow by visiting the camp PX. She’d spent too many dollars on it, but there wasn’t anything else she was saving to buy. 

The corner of the training field was empty, and the darkness of the Georgia forest created a comforting wall, devoid of onlookers, that June could turn her back to. She rolled her trouser bottoms up to her calves, and pulled her shirt sleeves to the elbow. And then she took off her boots, stepping lightly with her bandaged feet on the earthy ground. 

She pumped the spigot and wet her hands, rubbing at the bar of soap and lathering it onto the boots. Re-wetting the leather caused the smell of blood to reactivate, and June was hit with an unpleasant waft of coppery stink. Coughing slightly, June worked the bar of soap in and out of the boot, sliding it along the heel especially. By the time she was done soaping the boots, her arms were smeared with sheer washes of red up to the elbow. She was careful not to get any on her uniform, and she crouched with her bare feet on the cool, dry soil away from the cement, aware that she was getting her feet dirty but not caring once she got into the task. 

Some dish soap would have been optimal, but June knew she wouldn’t want to go and wrangle it from the kitchen. 

The rhythm of scrubbing the boots up with soap became mind-numbing and pleasant. June sweated a little in the sun, but the shade of the nearby trees casted shade over the spigot bowl, and once in a while a breeze passed through, lifting June’s unpinned hair from her shoulders. She lost track of time, working over every inch of the boots, hoping the stain would come out. 

After a while of going back and forth on both boots – insole, laces, and all – June decided that the dark of the boots was going to hide any stain that didn’t come out. Besides, they needed time to dry and the morning was turning warm. She rinsed them out below the spigot, having slight difficulty maneuvering herself to stay dry while also holding the boots under the spray. She somehow rinsed them to a point she deemed sufficient, and then put her arms under the water, washing away the last of the blood. She watched it mix with the granular dirt left in the basin and swirl down into the drain.

June dried the boots with her towel, pleased to find no more red when she patted them dry. The insoles would have to take more time to let go of the water, but she sponged off the water as best she could and put them back on, making her way back to the billet. Once she was back, she set the boots out in the sun and sat next to them, hoping they’d dry by 0600 the next day. She regarded the boots with an amount of protective worry. Just in case someone decided to mess with her paratrooper boots, June decided to sit with them.

She left them alone momentarily and came back outside with new bandages and plasters, propping one foot on the thigh of one leg and seeing how they were healing. The blisters had been so bad that she knew they were going to take a week or two to heal, but she’d be running the next day. She tore open the foot powder packets and sprinkled them on, and then replaced the old dressings with new ones, patting on plasters over the top. She’d bandage her feet better the next day, but she let them dangle off the billet as she sat with her boots. 

The entire Sunday, June passed the time sitting with her boots, getting sun and trying to enjoy the calm before the storm. She didn’t want to be stared at constantly whenever soldiers walked by, but there was no other alternative. For hours, June sat, reading her Bible, sketching on pieces of paper, and passing the time by idly watching a baseball game through the gaps between billets. 

A book appeared next to June around noon. She looked up to see an attractive private with dark hair, pale skin, and startlingly blue eyes, hovering awkwardly. June became aware she was staring and she looked back down. He didn’t look familiar, but June had yet to get used to the men in her company

She waited for him to say something, folding up her rough sketches of birds and placing it below her folded legs. 

“It just looked like you needed something to read,” he got out. “I, um…” he said, looking everywhere but June’s face. “I walked by and you looked bored. I have a lot of books, so don’t feel bad,” he said, pointing to the book. _The Sun Also Rises_.

“Hemingway,” June read. The man nodded. 

“I’m Diedtrich,” June said cautiously, wondering if this was a trap of some sort.

“I know,” he said. “Webster.”

They shook hands, not too awkwardly, but with June standing barefoot on dirt. Her cheeks reddened. It was not the ideal way to meet someone new.

“What happened to your boots?” Webster asked, eyeing the drying shoes. 

“Bled on ‘em,” June said. “Ruck marches. I wasn’t prepared.”

Webster nodded, somewhat distantly, noticing June’s feet, half covered with plasters. 

“Thanks for the book,” June said. “How do I get it back to you?”

Webster shrugged casually, although June noticed that his eyes did linger on the book. “I don’t want to give you a deadline or anything.”

“I can drop it at your billet,” June said. 

“Uh, sure. I’m in Fox Company, so it’s right over there,” he said, giving June the billet number and waving down the path in its direction. He then looked around the general area self-consciously, looking as if he attempted to pass off the gesture as a normal thing to do. June knew men must be paranoid if they were seen interacting with her. The outsider.

“Nice meeting you,” June said, with an air of formality. “Don’t want to get caught talking to me, do you?” she said, attempting a speck of levity. It wasn’t really humor because it was true, and it was what both of them were probably thinking. 

Some expression flashed across Webster’s face in an instant, and June tried to place it once it was gone. Maybe something like pity? Whatever it was, it made June a little uncomfortable, as if Webster had asked her how she was doing or if she’d made any friends. It was gone fast, though, replaced with a neutral smile that didn’t reach his eyes. 

“See you later,” he said quietly, and June watched him go down the rows and turn off to go somewhere off the thoroughfare. Anywhere else than with June, maybe.

June finished the book by the time it was almost lights out, raptly scanning the words until she reached the end, windows dark outside and all the men back in the billet. She’d taken it to chow twice, finding the company of a book the best distraction yet to catcallers in the mess hall. After she hit the last page and closed the back cover, June placed the book into her footlocker, grateful for Webster’s small gesture, even if it was a gesture made from unearned sympathy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the chapter delay! I hit some burnout last week. My apologies.


	7. Currahee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Training starts for real today. Starting with the run.

Apparently in Easy Company, things were never easy. In fact, it seemed that this company was the most difficult one to be in. 

Easy Company was out and in their uniforms, lined up in platoons at attention first thing in the morning, before 0600 hit. June’s boots had dried, thankfully, because of their time in the sun and almost a full day of airing. She didn’t have the same optimism for her feet, though. June had wrapped up each major blister and double-socked each foot. The boots weren’t completely broken in yet, to June’s amazement – they’d gone through a three-hour paced march, blood seepage, a vigorous washing, and a bleach in the sun, and they were still stiff and pinchy. The socks would help, hopefully. June tread her feet in place as the company waited for Lieutenant Sobel, her adrenaline mounting with every passing minute as the anticipation got worse and worse.

June wasn’t keen on her position in the platoon. Joe Toye stood next to her, like a wall of stone. He didn’t ever spare June a glance, but she felt vaguely uncomfortable, unable to reconcile the fact that Toye had given her a nudge on the night march when he’d looked at her with such a venomous stare in the daylight. 

She slouched over in the slightest, wondering when Sobel was going to decide to show. The company had been standing in formation, stock-still, for about ten minutes. June rolled her shoulder, adjusting her hold on her rifle. The rucksack on her back was starting to weigh her down, and she readjusted her center of balance to push forward, trying to counter the heavy poundage hanging off her back. A brief whisper went up somewhere in 3rd Platoon, and the men started to murmur amongst themselves, each only loud enough for the man next to him to hear. 

Movement surfaced in June’s periphery and she jerked to attention. So did everyone else, and the murmuring stopped abruptly. A moment later, Sobel was standing at the head of the company, already barking out reprimands. 

“You people are standing at the position of attention,” he spat, loud enough to boom over the entire company and then some. A drop of fear slid down June’s spine. Sobel stalked up and down the line, eyes catching on the faces of the officers in the front line. 

“You,” Sobel said suddenly, to a man in the second row of 1st. “Name.”

“Hoobler, Donald,” the man said, and June could see him through a gap in the men, swinging his rifle from his shoulder and presenting it to Sobel. 

“Private, your weapon is dirty,” Sobel said, tracing a finger along the rear sight aperture. “When was the last time you cleaned it?”

“Last week, sir,” Hoobler said. Sobel thrust the rifle back into Hoobler’s arms with excessive force, and Hoobler staggered slightly, grappling for the rifle before it could fall to the ground.

“Why haven’t you cleaned your gun this week, Private?” Sobel retorted, leaning into Hoobler closely – so close June could imagine spit hitting Hoobler when Sobel shouted. 

There was a slight pause. “No excuse, sir,” he said. Sobel looked down his nose at Hoobler with disgust. June wondered how it was possible for a man to look that disgusted at all hours of the day. 

She watched as Sobel’s eyes roved up and down the line, waiting and praying he didn’t spot her. Sobel’s eyes seemed to light up when he saw June, and a wave of trepidation came over her. She averted her eyes and resumed staring straight. She heard his boots come closer and closer until they stopped in front of her. He’d singled her out, as she had feared. 

“Private June,” he said, the force and volume of his voice sending an unpleasant blast of air at June’s face. She affixed her eyes on Sobel’s jacket zipper and swung her M-1 off her shoulder. Sobel was standing so close she barely had enough room to sling the rifle off without hitting Sobel. 

Sobel looked over the rifle. June watched his eyes scrape over every inch of the rifle, looking for an infraction. 

“Private, take apart and reassemble your firearm,” Sobel said suddenly, throwing the rifle back at her, June barely having any warning to catch it in her arms. “Time starts now.” _Click_ , went the pocketwatch. 

June stood still for a moment, looking at Sobel in disbelief, and then she knelt down on the ground, touching her knees to the dirt, dropping the M-1 to the soil with a cringe. She raced to pull the pieces apart, laying them all out and looking up at Sobel within thirty seconds. He looked down at her without any trace of satisfaction. June waited for some sign for her to continue – a nod, or something – but there was none, so she put the rifle back together again in silence, the only sound over the company being the click and slide of metal and her own stressed breathing in her ears. June didn’t have time to do much other than shake the dirt out of the small parts and give them quick swipes with her sleeves. She managed to put the rifle back together without trapping stray pieces of grass or debris inside, to the best of her ability. She wished there was a towel or a rag to lay out on the ground before she was forced to dirty the insides. Sobel obviously wouldn’t care. 

He just wanted to see her lose.

June straightened, pulling the rifle back up with her, giving the barrel another swipe with her arm. She was breathing hard, not from the physical exertion, but from the stress of the task, her heart in her throat. She didn’t dare wipe at her neck where she knew beads of sweat were forming, because Sobel was staring so hard it was if he could see into her soul. He took the rifle, inspected it, and threw it back into her arms. 

“Your weapon is dirty, June,” he spat. “You, Private, will run Currahee, not once, but twice.” His black eyes looked down at her without mercy. “Get into your PT gear.”

“Yes, sir,” June managed over her shock, hating how she hid the anger in her voice in a display of obedience. There was no room for deviation at risk of further upsetting Sobel, however, and June forced herself to ignore the thought until some other time she had to think. She ran back into the billet. None of the other men could turn around to look under Sobel’s watchful eye, but June was sure they were all listening curiously to the commotion behind them. 

June hit the door running, and pulled off her gear with as much speed as she could muster, stripping off the ODs and shoving them into her locker with a swiftness she never knew she possessed. With her rifle on the hook and her helmet on its shelf, June ran back outside, looking up at the distant mountain with anticipation. 

Sobel was right outside the billet. “Hurry up, Private,” he said in irritation. “Three miles up, three miles down.” When June looked hesitant for a second, Sobel stepped close into her space, pointing at the mountain insistently. “Go! Go! You are not a part of _my company_ if you cannot make it back in fifty minutes,” he barked with increasing volume. He was almost snarling, but June got the sense this was how it normally was.

June sped off without a backwards glance, running through the barracks and towards the peak of the mountain. Currahee. Task aside, she was glad to be away from the other men, if only for the minutes it took her to go up and down the mountain. Righteous anger and fury fueled her legs, and June was vaguely aware that she might be burning her fuel too early. She slowed down, but only after she sprinted past the sight range of Easy.

June passed the water spigot and ran past the field, leaving the billets behind, her braids bouncing against her back and the wind flowing down the mountain against her. She started uphill, seeing the path ahead of her. She was able to make a 10,000 meter run in thirty-five minutes and five seconds at her best. She was going to make this the run of her lifetime. 

As June ran uphill, she felt a sharp pain start again in her heel, but she didn’t have the energy to waste on swearing, nor the time to waste on adjusting her boot. The pain plateaued into a stabbing ache that June did her best to ignore. The double socks reduced the rubbing that she had felt on the march, and her feet were wrapped the best she could make them. She forged through the rubbing and concentrated on the pounding rhythm of her boots on the dirt as she puffed uphill, the trees on either side of the road blurring past in sheets of green. 

June tried to run at her usual pace, but it was hard to know how far along she was on a path she’d never ran. The steep climb uphill also messed up her sense of time. She knew she’d be tired out far more quickly than if she was running on a flat track. She cast the doubt out of her mind, knowing any pessimism was just going to slow her down. 

June didn’t think about anything while running. She enjoyed keeping her mind blank, memorizing the pace of her breaths in and out and the double-time pound of her feet meeting the ground. Her thighs and calves started to burn as the path became narrower and the trees thinned out, and June knew she was nearing the peak of the mountain. The red of the dirt path sped by underneath her boots. She counted her footfalls unconsciously, controlling her breathing, and the top of the slope came into view, a concrete marker sitting at the peak of the gentle curve of the mountain summit. June touched it and turned around, giving herself no time to marvel at the sight of Camp Toccoa laid out below. 

A small dark square stood out among the billets. It must have been Easy, apparently still standing at attention, maybe being berated by Sobel, or worse, simply waiting in silence for June to return. 

There were three more miles to go, and June sped down the mountain as fast as she could with something to prove. Something to accomplish. She was thankful for the downhill slope of the mountain, pushing her forward. The blur of the trees and plants and road all passed by as she fell into the rhythm of running again during the return trip, the aching of her blisters rubbing against the front of her boots fading slightly as her thoughts centered only on her objective.

June knew she was nearing the bottom of the mountain when she could no longer see all the way across camp to the road leading out the opposite end. The trees towered overhead, and she approached the flat zone. She tried to speed up and burn through her extra fuel, knowing in the back of her mind this wasn’t her last hurrah. She needed to run once more after this time, but she resolutely pushed the fact out of her conscious mind, saving the anticipation of pain for later. The low burning in her legs and chest remained a minor presence as she pushed her legs faster and harder, through the exhaustion, and she remembered her fury. 

June knew she still had room to cut down her time as she was about to hit the end of the dirt road and the beginning of the concrete of the camp. She now saw men out and about, because during her run there must have been wake-up. She sped forwards, not taking the time to try to recognize or acknowledge anyone. She passed the spigot, and a minor feeling of relief came over her. She pushed that away too, just focusing on the anger and the humiliation Sobel had heaped on her. How he’d revoked her weekend passes on first sight. How he took advantage of her confusion when she’d been disoriented. How he created this very situation, forcing her to dirty her own weapon so he could manufacture a situation for her to learn a lesson. He hoped June would fail and wash out, just like everyone else. 

June may not have been the strongest or the smartest or the best shot. But she could maybe try to be the fastest. She knew Sobel didn’t know about her running history. She was going to show him, right here and right now. 

She leaned into a sprint, sweat clinging to her neck and tickling down the side of her face. She didn’t pause to wipe it away. 

She was down among the billets now, and she worried that she only had a few more seconds to make the time. She shot through crowds of men, silently demanding that they clear for her, not that she would lose seconds going around. Platoons were starting to form in front of other billets, and she ran, ran through the men, and ran through the camp, tearing down the path as fast as she could get her body to run. 

Easy came up in the distance, and in a matter of seconds, she met the platoon, shooting past for a few meters, not wanting to lose speed to slow down in front. 

She turned around, walked back to Sobel, and stood at attention, chest heaving and throat dry, a drip of sweat making its way down her neck. She stared into his eyes, daring him to say the time. He looked down and paused, and June waited for the time. 

_Say it_ , she dared him, eyes never leaving his face.

“Forty minutes,” Sobel said, not even bothering to make up a bogus time. Something close to disbelief clouded his features. June almost smiled, but stood fast in her spot, keeping the grin down. She latched onto the anger, remembering. She was here to prove them wrong. And she’d have to run again. This was a small victory in the face of an endless battle. 

“Get in your PT gear. You’re running Currahee,” Sobel shouted to the collective company. “You too, June,” he spat, as if he took her run time personally. “I expect you to keep up.” 

Winters turned around as Sobel walked off in the direction of Currahee, probably to wait at the top with the stopwatch. 

“Second Platoon, fall out. You have two minutes,” he said, exuding a type of calm control that contrasted with Sobel’s freakish focus on power. The other two platoons were dismissed simultaneously. The men scattered, pushing past June, who stood in her spot still, chest heaving. She put her hands on her knees and doubled over, gasping for breath after having to control it for Sobel, hoping she wasn’t going to cramp. 

“Private,” said a voice. June looked up. Winters was standing in front of her, and she snapped up into a proper, respectful salute. 

“Sir,” June said, between heavy breaths, feeling her lungs fill and deflate almost painfully. 

“Good time. I expect the same time or better in a week,” he said, leaving June dumbfounded as he walked towards his own billet to get changed. 

“Thank you, sir,” she said, when she gathered her thoughts enough to put a sentence together. 

She turned around. He was already out of earshot. June realized it was the first time someone had acknowledged her being there at camp for more than a day. 

Winters expected her there for a week or longer. The expectation made June feel strangely looked-after, and simultaneously stressed. It meant Winters was watching, for better or for worse.

June, having two minutes already on the clock, ran into the billet to grab her canteen. 

The pain from her feet was not as bad as she’d anticipated. Her feet were still not in the ideal condition to run, but they didn’t feel as if they were going to bleed. She sat down on her cot while the men took off their ODs all around her, and poked at her heels through her boots. They were still sensitive. 

She took one more gulp of water, put her canteen back, and wiped sweat off her forehead. The second run would be brutal. She’d used herself up, and now she had even less to put into the mountain this time. She hoped her training would sustain her through the journey. 

“Forty minutes?” she heard someone say behind her. June turned around to catch the tail end of the conversation. “Bet she didn’t even make it up the hill and turned around halfway.” He snorted.

It was Guarnere, again. He looked up from where he was adjusting the ties on his boots. “What are you looking at, girl?” he said, looking fearfully hostile. June turned away, a growl dying in the back of her throat. Nothing would ever be enough to win approval, especially from him. 

She told herself she didn’t need his approval, but her victory was dampened. She tried to summon the fury again – and she let the indignation flow over her, washing her veins in fire. All she had to do was keep up during this run, and maybe outrun Guarnere. 

When two minutes was up, the platoon walked towards Currahee. Apparently they started at the base of the mountain, and June savored the few minutes of rest. She tried to ignore her blisters, but she felt them rub a little more. 

_Push through the pain_ , she told herself, stretching out her legs and taking deep breaths, preparing for the run again. Once she was back down, June would have run twelve miles, more than Friday night. She hoped the adrenaline and boot padding would give her the boost she needed. Otherwise her feet would be torn up the same way. And then where would she be the rest of the day? The double socks and extra plasters would have to bear her through.

June bent down to stretch out her legs, absently thinking that she needed to prep for the second run even if none of the other men stretched. Maybe they all thought they were above cramps, or something. Or maybe they all dealt with it in silent suffering, like it seemed most men did with discomfort.

“Nice legs, sweetheart!” came a shout from a distance away. June shot upright, scanning the area. There were too many people nearby for her to tell who it was. It might not have even been from a man in Easy Company.

“Aw, she’s mad,” said someone nearby in a mocking voice, and scattered laughter floated up from 2nd. June took a few moments to breathe in and out, not bothering to look for the perpetrator. It could have been any one of the men, for the way they treated her. If no one was going to think otherwise, it didn’t really matter who in the company said it. 

“Tired, Private?” said Sobel’s voice unexpectedly, and June jerked around, a flare of panic racing up her spine. Sobel was standing a few feet away, holding the stopwatch expectantly in his hand. June took in his PT gear and was suddenly cripplingly disappointed. He was running with them.

“No, sir,” June said, irritated. Sobel bristled at the tone, looking as if he would retort but deciding better. He moved down the line to glare at someone else, and a few moments later, she heard his strident yell. 

“Go, go!” he screaming, leading the run up the mountain.

June couldn’t get lost in the running – not this time. The men packed all around her were bothersome, and she constantly moved back and forth to avoid hitting someone. But June knew it was going to happen at some point, and early in the run, while the men were still under the towering pines, she wasn’t paying enough attention and someone elbowed her in the side. 

They were all jostling, so June brushed it off as unintentional. She moved more to the side of the pack, jogging on her own. The men weren’t moving exceptionally slowly, but June wanted to get the run over with and come back fast. She sped forward, leaving the group behind, and rising to the front of 2nd Platoon, near where Winters was running. She didn’t take the time to identify faces, but Malarkey and Skip both turned around for a moment to see June huffing on the side of the path, staring forwards and breathing hard.

Midway, the men started singing running cadences. 

June didn’t try to sing or follow along, but the first time she heard the rhythm, she felt awkwardly intrusive as the only one without knowledge of the songs. The men all knew them, staying on each beat and occasionally counting off and shouting the final lines. It was loud and forced her to integrate her pace with the others, and she just listened, trying to memorize the lines for the next time they ran Currahee. 

There was a uniting togetherness that they shared, through the pain and drudgery of running. June didn’t know the feeling, and it made her feel worse.

The second time she was elbowed, June was less likely to pass it off as coincidence. The arm of someone ahead of her scored a direct hit in her sternum, suspiciously high for an accident, and a whoosh of air left her lungs. She coughed in surprise and clutched at her chest, cursing the extra movement and wasted breath that was going to sap her energy later. The men all around ignored her. She raised her chin, looking for whoever had tried to hit her off course. 

She spotted Guarnere almost immediately, but her gaze shifted to Liebgott, who was jogging next to him. Liebgott wasn’t above screwing around with her. He gave her some of the meanest looks, other than Toye. She watched the two, waiting for one of them to turn their head to the other for some kind of conspiratorial look. 

After a while, June decided she couldn’t do anything, and she once again aimed her gaze up the mountain as she breathed hard and her legs burned like they never had before. This double run wasn’t going to kill her, but June was not happy that she’d probably be weak for the rest of the day. Making good time on one run was one thing, but the uphill angle and terrain she needed to navigate made the run more of an exercise in misery.

June was pushed one last time, when they’d almost reached the crest of the mountain. An arm shot out from inside the clump at the front of 2nd, catching her on the shoulder, and her foot slid away from its tenuous grip on the sloping mountainside. The path had become almost a right angle near the top, and June’s legs slid out from under her. June emitted something like a small shriek as she felt her foot leave the ground. She attempted to balance herself, but her boots couldn’t get a grip, and June slid down about thirty feet. 

She didn’t have time to sit and be upset, so she clawed her way back up the slope, She made her way back up to the concrete stump, slipping slightly on the grass, and Sobel narrowed his eyes at June, looking at his stopwatch. 

Her face was hot with rushing blood, and her righteous fury flared up again at the sight of Sobel. June caught a backwards glance from Winters, and she hoped he hadn’t seen her skid down the slope. She turned around and started jogging back the way she came, avoiding men on her way down, and half-skidding in her haste to get away from the top.

She caught up to the leading edge of 2nd on her way down, breathing the hardest she’d ever breathed. She tried to keep her mind off her feet, but there was nothing she could do about the building friction. She pictured cleaning her boots again and internally shuddered.

By the time she was about two miles down the mountain, the last mile was the worst. She pushed and pushed, and the men around her were tired and slowing. June was lighter, but she was also less muscular than everyone else. She had training and practice, but that was her only advantage. The length of her legs in comparison to the others combined with her increased exhaustion after running Currahee the first time almost negated whatever edge she had on the other men, and to her disappointment, she faded to the center of 2nd instead of keeping pace with the front. 

Her braids smacking her in the back became a nuisance. June felt the pounding of the road through her boots, the jamming of her feet against her boots, and the burning of her lungs. She forcibly shut out the surrounding environment and drove herself to the last of her capacity, ignoring the men, the trees, and the stress of time. She saw without seeing, just dodging objects without acknowledging them. She ran until she almost reached the end of herself. 

The end was near, and the trees broke at the bottom of the hill. She was close. There were only a few more seconds between her and the last of the pain. 500 meters. 400. 300. She was closing in on the finish, until there were only 100 meters, and then 50. She was close. Closer. 

Closer.

June stumbled over the end of the path, where concrete met dirt. She breathed so hard she felt as if she was going to throw up her lungs – she imagined blood streaming from her throat into the dirt as she coughed and coughed, almost keeling over. Her esophagus was raw from the constant in and outflow of forced air. She’d done it: Twelve miles. Six miles up, six miles down. 

Currahee. 

She was light-headed, with black spots pushing at the edges of her vision. June stopped coughing for a second, wiping spit from her mouth and pulling strands of hair that had escaped the braid behind her ears. The pain in her chest unexpectedly turned into something distantly familiar: nausea. She staggered to the side of the road, coughing and retching into the plants, holding the trunk of a nearby tree. But there was nothing to vomit except the water she’d drank that day, and she wiped at her mouth, pulling at the collar of her PT shirt to dab at her profusely watering eyes. 

This kind of exhaustion wasn’t foreign to June. It happened sometimes when she pushed herself too hard: it usually happened when she took too long of a break between runs or she hadn’t been eating very well. June knew both of those things were true, and she had sweated out most of the water she’d drank before the run. This indeed had been the run of her life. 

She straightened, staggering on her feet as she tried to get her balance back. There were only a few men milling about from Easy, and the only reason she knew they were Easy boys was because she spotted Tab panting with his hands resting on his hips, facing slightly away from her. Shifty came down the mountain next with heaving breaths.

June needed water. The faintly dizzy feeling was making her nauseous again, but she fought it. Where was everyone else? Why was the bottom of the hill empty? She looked around, visibly disoriented. Then she looked back up Currahee, where more men were still coming down the hill. 

Had most of Easy already come down and dispersed? 

June saw black again, and she swayed on her feet, trying not to faint. She needed water. 

In her impaired state, June decided that stability outweighed water, and she sat down on the path, putting her head between her legs and pushing air into her lungs. She would not black out. She would not be weak in front of Easy Company. If she was going to be a paratrooper, the least she could do was not faint after doing a run. 

She stayed like that for more than a few minutes, compressing herself into a ball. She needed water, but she was in no state to go get any from the spigot. Her dark and people-less bubble was nice and comforting, and she lost track of time, trying to rest and not go unconscious, though she wasn’t sure if she did go completely dark for a few seconds. 

When June thought the faintness had passed, she tried to get back up, losing balance the first time and then succeeding on her second try. She held onto the tree nearby, leaning more than she would have liked. Most of the men were down by that point, and she suddenly understood that she’d beaten the vast majority. 

She hadn’t been late. She was early, again. 

She wondered absently what her time was, not being able to latch onto coherent thoughts for very long. She watched the men jog down the hill, each one acknowledged somehow by someone else who was already at the bottom. A blurrily upset feeling settled over June, for a reason that she let go of and couldn’t get back. 

“Diedtrich.” said a deep voice, close by. June turned as if pushing through a mental fog. 

Dark hair. White skin. “Roe?” she said, recognition filling her. “What is it?”

She saw Roe lean closer, his eyebrows pinched together. “You feel funny?” he said suspiciously. 

“If you’re referring to, uh, fainting,” she said, squinting to focus on Roe, “I believe I already did that.” 

Roe frowned. “You need water,” he said. 

June nodded. “Water’s not here,” she said. “Gotta wait until Sobel dismisses us.”

Roe sighed, and June was disappointed that he seemed to see her whenever she was at her worst. He seemed content to wait, and June leaned heavily against the tree. The nausea passed, thankfully, and June improved slightly after a few more minutes of stillness. 

Sobel came down the hill and yelled a few things into the crowd, and then dismissed them all. It all passed in a blur to June, and she hoped she didn’t miss anything important. After Sobel left and the men dispersed towards the billets to change back into ODs, June pushed herself off the tree and moved forward without much struggle. 

When she made it to her billet, she pushed through the crowding men and all but collapsed onto her bed facedown.

“What, Doc, did she injure herself again?” she heard Martin sarcastically ask Roe as he made it into the billet on June’s heels. June didn’t pay attention to Roe’s answer – she retrieved her canteen and downed the rest of it, and then laid down again, trying to shut out the men and their various states of dress.

“Sobel drove you pretty hard, huh?” said a voice from above. June opened her eyes from her sprawled-out position. It was Lipton, looking down at her. 

June sat up with a small groan. “Yes,” she got out, her throat feeling ragged and dry despite the water. She focused on nothing in particular, fixing her eyes on some unclear space over Lipton’s right shoulder. 

“You’re fast,” Lipton said. 

June looked up, surprised. “Thank you,” she said. 

Lipton broke eye contact, looking awkward. “Gonna get some food?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” June said, less than enthusiastic, heaving herself back up to retrieve her ODs. 

“If you need to wait a little bit or something…” Lipton trailed off.

“I’m fine,” June said. “Just tired.”

Somehow she got her ODs on and made her way to breakfast. And the rest of the day maybe wasn’t as hellish as Currahee, but June knew she’d have to run it again and again, each day at the crack of dawn. 

That was alright. She’d conquered Currahee. It was only the first thing on her list.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus begins the pain train. Hop on, y'all!


	8. Drills

June somehow recovered partially from her immediate exhaustion after eating breakfast, but she still felt weak in the legs. Her lungs were sore. Her throat was dry. Her tendons were aching, and there hadn’t even been more than an hour or two for the muscles to sit. She knew it was going to be a painful day regardless of her shining run time up and down Currahee.

In fact, June was starting to grow worried even before entering the mess hall, but not for entirely physical reasons. She was getting dirty looks from some of the Easy men who she assumed she’d beaten down the track. Maybe they thought that she posed a challenge – or they thought she was a threat to their athleticism. A woman outstripping men in any physical activity was not received well. Especially _these_ men: This was Easy Company. Easy Company was the best. And the majority of the group had been bested by a mere outsider. To make matters worse, she was of the weaker sex. 

June thought the idea was ridiculous. They had nothing to fear. Even if she’d outraced them all, what really mattered was the fighting and the shooting: two things that she was undeniably inferior at. June was almost relieved that running was her only strength. Offending the rest of the men was not her goal, and it would exclude her from the group even more than she’d already been.

After breakfast was drills. They were seemingly endless. The drill instructors didn’t particularly like June, but the trouble mostly lay with the other men. 

June might have known how to take care of a rifle, but shooting it was another matter. She'd been mediocre at target practice in school, and it showed when June missed the target a few times before hitting the outside ring, regrettably out of practice. June lowered her rifle, shading her eyes and looking down the practice range with frustrated disappointment. 

Her body was wrung out from the run that morning, and her muscles shook whenever she relaxed. She clenched her hands, struggling to hold the rifle completely still. Her legs did not feel steady. Her shooting was probably at its worst that day, and it was the first day she had to showcase any other skills she might have had.

What a first impression. 

Down the line, someone emptied their clip with frightening speed, the shells dropping and clinging together as they hit the ground. The end-clip ping sounded, and June looked at the shooter’s target. Each bullet hole was never more than a few rings from the center. The marksman knelt down to retrieve another clip, and he jammed it into the bolt, snapping it forward and chambering a new bullet. 

June got a quick look at the man. His nickname was Shifty, she’d gathered, from the congratulatory shouts of his friends next to him when they saw his precision and accuracy. He looked down, smiling a little and brushing off the grudging words of approval from the drill sergeant. 

To shoot like Shifty seemed like a gift. June sighed, raised her rifle again, anchored her legs, and breathed out. She took a shot, flinching at the kickback. It went wide and pinged the edge of the target. 

“You learn _that_ at West Point?” said Liebgott from beside June. He fired off another shot, and his at least landed in the relative middle area between the center and the edge. “You ain’t even hitting the target.”

It was rare that anyone went and talked to June voluntarily, but when they did, it was never uplifting, with rare exception. She ignored the remark, firing off another shot. It didn’t hit the target, and she knew that Liebgott had seen.

“Private Diedtrich, what are you aiming for? The birds?” the drill sergeant said above the bang of rifles. He was coming to June’s end of the range. The background firing stopped, and eyes pivoted to June once again. 

“No, sir,” June said resignedly. Her hand holding the rifle shook minutely, and she clamped down with an iron grip, trying to control the tremors. 

“Assume firing position,” said the instructor. June raised her rifle and shuffled her feet a little wider apart. The sergeant inspected June’s position. He nudged her leg, told her to turn her foot. “Fire.” 

June’s shot barely touched the outermost circle. 

“Stop closing your eyes, Private,” he said. “The shot is going to land where it lands regardless of how many eyes you got open. The shells aren’t going to hit your face.” He paused, looking at the targets again. “Fire.”

This time, June’s shot didn’t do much better. The sergeant looked at the target silently, and moved back down the line without comment. She heard Liebgott emit an amused snort. June allowed herself to react, unable to help it, and she sent him a murderous glare back. He gave her a condescending grin and turned back to his target.

June used to have similar exchanges with her brother. But this interaction with Liebgott was charged with a nasty edge of prejudice and antagonism. June did not glance at Liebgott’s side of the range for a long time, resolutely keeping her gaze forward on the sorry state of her target.

June fired off her last shot, and the clip pinged. She loaded another, taking her time reloading, and shot her best at the target. She improved minutely by the end of the class.

Easy was also scheduled for hand-to-hand, and June knew she was in for a whole new world of pain as she trailed behind her platoon, the drill sergeant pairing off men. He went down the line of 2nd, putting people together regardless of size, and June looked at the practice field with anxious dread, trying to count down the line and predict who the sergeant was putting with her. 

“You,” said the sergeant, pointing to June when he’d picked his way down the line. “You’re with him.” 

June followed the line of his arm, and her gaze landed on Malarkey. His mouth opened in indignation as the statement registered, but the sergeant pinned him with a death glare. Malarkey fell silent and looked despicably at June. 

_I don’t like it any more than you do_ , she wanted to tell him. But she said nothing. 

She felt him sizing her up. June did the same, eyeing Malarkey with a healthy measure of foreboding. He had a ton of strength in the arms and probably his upper body, and June’s was in her legs. But her energy was depleted, and with a sinking feeling, June considered that she’d be an even easier target that day. She was physically weak, tired, and shaking, and she knew the others were starting to see it too – probably confirming whatever convictions they’d started with at the first sight of her. June rubbed at her neck tiredly. Malarkey could probably knock her over with one push. She was in no condition to try and hit.

The drill sergeant droned on, and June watched him demonstrate the self-defense maneuvers with a desperate focus and increasing dread. She looked out of the corner of her eye at Malarkey. She did not feel like grappling with sweaty men, but it had to be done.

The Sergeant released all the pairs to start practicing, and June faced Malarkey. He was going to go first, and June raised her arms and hands in the way she knew how, creating a shield between her face and Malarkey’s possible hits. He sighed, and June’s right hand spontaneously started to tremble with an increasing vigor. She hoped he didn’t see it, and started to clench her fingers.

It seemed like he didn’t. He was too caught up in fidgeting and stalling for time before he actually had to touch her. 

“Private,” said the instructor from a few feet down. “Take her down. What are you waiting for?”

Malarkey heaved a sigh and went in for the throw, suddenly crowding June and pushing her down onto the ground by sheer force, pulling at the arms of her ODs and leveraging his superior strength. She landed hard, air leaving her lungs suddenly. The other men were landing on the ground, so June wasn’t too upset, but Malarkey was too strong for June to try and resist for more than a few seconds. 

The second time, June pulled back, trying to push his arms away. Malarkey threw her down anyway, knocking her back with a swift up-and-out above her windpipe like the instructor taught, and she hit the back of her head hard on the ground. She gave herself a shake while she was lying on the ground on her back, groaning slightly. She heard a very quiet collective _ooh_ from the surrounding men, all staring down at her. 

Malarkey didn’t help her up. June got on her hands and knees, caught her breath, and came back up. The sergeant announced they’d be switching places, and June took a few deep breaths, staring Malarkey down, arms hovering instinctually to cover her face. She ground her back foot into the grass and tried to calm herself and prepare for the worst. 

He was much bigger than her. He wasn’t going to go down. 

June launched herself at him, trying to latch her elbow around his neck and pull him down. Malarkey stood fast, pushing her back with a strong and harsh jab of his forearm against her side. June flew off of him and almost fell down with an unintentional squeak. She stood back, looking for weak points in vain. 

He just looked bored. June tried to get herself riled up and angry, narrowing her eyes. It was possibly the only thing that would give her enough fire to actually complete the objective. 

She knew she didn’t look menacing, at all. 

June ran at him again with her arm out to close around his neck, and he pushed against it, predictably, almost throwing June off-balance. She swept an ankle behind his leg before he could push her completely off, and she threw her weight to his opposite shoulder. His leg didn’t budge, and she kicked at him with the hook of her leg before she heaved her leg up for a final push, getting at the back of his knee. 

Malarkey didn’t fall, as June hoped, but he buckled momentarily and then straightened, looking at June – who was still pressed close and grabbing at his shoulders – with a mix of vengefulness and surprise. June laid off, backing away. She did not like the look on his face. 

The drills went terribly for June. She gathered that they were going average for the other men. After hand-to-hand, and being thrown down a few more times, the company went to the mess hall and back out to the field.

It was the time of the day for the obstacle course. June looked at the sprawling lane of rope, wood, and sand with dread. She was nearing her physical limits for the day. She looked down at her hands and they trembled without any chance of stopping. She was beginning to feel muscle tremors in her legs. It was not going to be easy. 

As she expected, the course consisted of the drill sergeant yelling at the platoon, the men yelling at each other, and Winters – to her surprise – urging others forward at the front of the group.

June found herself lagging behind after the first two obstacles. She got across the pit on the bars, hauling herself hand over hand, and finally ran through the rope net, tripping twice as her legs threatened to give out. She puffed, straining against the pain. 

She pushed herself back up, feeling the ropes shaking as other men behind and in front of her hopped with rapid speed through the network. One or two fell, and other Easy men pulled them back up by their gear. 

Something flickered on the edge of June’s periphery, but she ignored the warning and gripped at the rope. It burned her skin where it slid against her hands, and she breathed hard, willing herself to get up and keep running.

After June cleared the ropes, she turned around for a half-second. 

Sobel was pacing the course in the background, and June’s spine went to ice. He was here. Fear fueled her leaps and crawls as she ran to get away from his burning gaze.

The wall loomed ever-closer, and June was finally in front of it. It was taller than her, and there was no way around it. She had to go over, and her panic intensified as she saw men surging past her, hopping up to grab the top span of the wall and wrestling their way over relatively easily, pulling up and dropping down on the other side. June saw no men fail. The one she’d seen fall just jumped back up and pulled himself over again. 

Sobel was getting closer, because his yells were getting increasingly louder. 

June stared down the vast wooden wall. 

She made a running start, and jumped against the wall, hitting the tip of the ledge with one finger and then sliding back down to the ground. She looked to the side and caught sight of Perconte being hauled up by someone who was already at the top. June tried again, jumping as high as she could, and her right hand got over the lip. She gripped at the edge, and felt her fingers losing purchase as her feet hit the dirt on the same side again. 

“Private June. Get over the wall!” came an insistent, grating yell. June didn’t have to look. It was Sobel, and he’d spotted her easily. “If you can’t complete the course, you’re out of Easy,” he shouted, loud enough for all the other men to hear. She cringed.

Men were flying by at a concerning pace. June watched as the amount of men dwindled behind her, and in a final state of desperation, she made another bid for the wall as quickly as possible, this time getting both hands over. She flexed her failing biceps, her boots sliding against the wood, trying to find purchase so she could push herself up. Her right foot found a bolt sticking out, and she pushed, but it slid off the small protrusion, and June fell against the wall with an _oof_ , her body slamming up against it as her burning arms held her off the ground.

June felt Sobel’s eyes on her. “June, what are you doing?” came the voice again, and June couldn’t answer him because she was breathing so hard. She hoped he didn’t target her for an infraction, and her heart rate sped up past what she thought was possible for her own body.

She was left dangling, and gave another push with her feet. Her arms were burning beyond all comparison, and she was getting weaker. Any moment she’d fall off. Sobel said something else, lingering where June was, but she didn’t try to sort out what he was saying.

She felt something on her left wrist, and to her surprise, a hand materialized from the other side of the wall, hauling her up. She pulled herself up with her right hand, and her chest came close enough to the ledge for her to kick her foot over in what seemed like a gesture she’d never be able to do. She laid on top of the wall for a fraction of a second before scooting to the other side and dropping down again, the impact of the ground sending a bone-rattling shock up her ankles and rattling her shins. 

She looked around for the helper to thank them, but they had disappeared into the throng. 

“Move, June!” blared Sobel from behind, sounding as irritated as ever. “You will never be a paratrooper at this point!”

The comment hit hard, and June knew that Sobel meant it. She had no time to dwell on it, though. She dove into the tunnel, crawling towards the circle of light at the end, trying not to repeat Sobel’s comments in her head. He said the same things to many of the other men. She kept telling herself that it was just the way things were, the small diameter of the tunnel scraping at her knees and elbows as she clawed her way through. 

She got to the end, grasped the edge, and pushed herself onto the dirt, somersaulting roughly and landing heavily on her back. She pulled herself up, army-crawling into the pit where barbed wire was laid across the top. Her whole body was burning with exertion, and she rolled underneath a particularly low section where there was a ditch.

Sobel was pacing again with the stopwatch. June tried to ignore him as he yelled at the other men. And suddenly he was back at her side, not even going to the end of the line before coming back to June’s position again. 

“You’re weak, Private!” he strained, shaking the stopwatch accusingly at June as she thrashed towards the end of the wire section. “You’ll get all the other men killed with your incompetence!”

Now, _that_ June hadn’t heard before. She slowed down for a moment, and then came back up again, speeding through the course section like her life depended on it. Her mind momentarily left her body on autopilot. She had no time to waste, but June was stunned. 

It was clear that everyone thought she was an annoyance and a burden, dragging down the PT scores and reputation of Easy Company. They had a right to be upset about it. But she didn’t know everyone thought she was a liability, and June felt tears prickling at the rims of her eyes. 

_No, no. Stop it_ , she told herself. _You’ll make it worse_.

She kept her head down and pulled herself out of the ditch at the end of the wire, panting and heaving too hard to do anything about Sobel’s beratement, hoping and praying this wasn’t the situation every single day. 

She was nearing the end. More than half of Easy was already done with the course, and June pushed herself to the finish and then stood shaking with her hands on her knees, waiting for the few other men to end the course. Sobel looked at her with open hostility, glaring at the stopwatch. 

“Not good enough, June,” he spat, and he walked away, seething, as usual. June heaved for breath and drank water from her canteen, suddenly feeling a sting in her mouth. She swished it around and spat out a mouthful into the grass. It was slightly red. She must have bit the side of her mouth in all the chaos. 

June put away her canteen and spat into the grass again, straightening and swiping a hand across her mouth, staring emptily as the last man ran to the finish. She’d beaten some of them, but she didn’t feel any better for it. Now, she was simply tired – her body was giving out and her mind dwelling on thoughts of helpless misery. She’d sweated and struggled more in two days than she ever had in her entire life. 

Sobel barked at the men to fall in. June, trying to keep it together, joined formation, smearing her sleeve across her face. She sucked a phantom sob back into her throat and fell silent, looking ahead without focusing. She was weary, and felt slight relief when Sobel dismissed them to supper. 

It was the end of the first training day, and June was close to collapsing on her feet. The reason for her unusual exhaustion was the extra six miles, she told herself. But June knew if she wasn’t able to keep up, Sobel would throw her out. Or even worse, she’d get up and go and wash out herself. 

She hoped she wouldn’t be driven to that undignified point of desperation. 

June slogged through dinner, eating alone at the table in the back of the hall that was becoming habit. No one tried to mess with her this time – she ate quietly before putting her tray and utensils back into the washing pile, pushing through people because the crowd no longer parted for her. She supposed that was fortunate, but she felt too exhausted to think. 

By the time she got to the billet, June decided she was going to bed early. She went to the bathroom to wash up, and stepped back into the light of the setting sun when she was finished, holding her toothbrush and soap. 

The camp was quieter at night on weekdays. June was thankful, because loud voices did not sit with her very well in her tired, worn-out state. She took her time getting back to the billet, every step feeling heavy. 

Just a day ago, she’d been crossing camp twice over to go to chapel, wash her boots, and go to the bathroom multiple times.

She got to the billet, pulled off her ODs quickly, and got to cleaning her rifle that had been dirtied that same day. It felt like it was ages ago, but June took apart the parts with absent disappointment, shaking bits of dirt from the crevices and running a cleaning rag over the small parts. Thankfully it hadn’t jammed that day during practice, but June thought there was a good chance it would have if a few more dirt particles fell into several more gaps in the parts.

She put the rifle back together, clicking and snapping the metal pieces as they reassembled into her M-1. With the rifle cleaned and hung up behind her, she shook out her braids and laid down on her cot, staring up at the ceiling and hoping sleep would take her soon. She closed her eyes and breathed, feeling the soreness in her abdominals, her back, her arms and legs,

The smell of smoke drifted up from nearby beds; there was quiet laughter and conversation. Some men from the billet were gone – doing something outside in the field or in other billets – and some others, also from Easy, had replaced them momentarily. June didn’t bother to try to look at the new faces. She figured that her stay might be transient, so there was really no point in familiarizing herself.

There was a ruffle of soft paper – most likely dollar bills – and whispering. June had a premonition that they were betting. She’d caught less muffled words from conversations she’d happen to walk by, and she knew it wasn’t just a furtive game of high-stakes poker. She absently wondered how they’d react if she walked into their circle and threw down a five, betting that she’d be forced out of Easy in two days, because that was her estimate of Sobel’s patience. They’d look at her, stunned, and she’d smile heartlessly. 

No, she’d never have the guts. It was just a fantasy. 

June surged upright, ignoring the protest in her muscles, and she dug a cigarette out of her belongings. The flutter of dollars stopped as the men realized with surprise she wasn’t asleep. She almost smiled humorlessly to herself and lit it up with shivering fingers. It shook as she guided it to her mouth, and she took a drag, waiting for the small hit of relaxation to come over her. 

The conversation resumed, but decibels quieter as the men turned back to whatever they were doing. June didn’t care. It didn’t affect her, anyway. 

She took a second drag, and let the smoke trickle from her lips as she lowered herself back on the bed, muttering a curse as her arm twinged. She hung the cigarette hand off the side of the bed, and coughed emptily, feeling the pang in her abdominals.

She almost didn’t want to wake up the next morning. The soreness was going to be hellish, and so when June smoked the rest of the cigarette down to the filter, she got up slowly and made her way to the front of the billet, flicking the burnt-down stub into the waste bucket and dropping back onto her bed. 

The talking all around her never ceased. To anyone else who was a man, it would have been comforting and rather nice: the low hum of camaraderie, maybe. To June, it was the loneliest thing she’d ever heard. She stared at the ceiling once again with the taste of smoke in her mouth and the ringing of foreign levity in her ears.

♤

The next day was almost as bad as the first. June was sore from her neck to her feet. When she tried to get out of bed in the morning, she almost fell before she could regain her footing. At least her fingers weren’t shaking anymore, but her abdominals were struggling through the push-ups and sit-ups that day. It was a solid wall of pain. But June, true to herself, finished before the vast majority of Easy again, surging ahead a little bit more than the previous day despite the concerning fluttering sensations in her muscles. She took more elbows to the waist, but a cursory glance of Lieutenant Winters’s monitoring routine made the men scatter temporarily and keep their arms mostly to themselves. 

Currahee, like Monday, was the only victory of the day. There was a class indoors, to June’s relief, after an hour or two of heavy physical drilling, and she leaned heavily into her chair at the back, taking notes and listening raptly to the man drone about the role of pathfinders during recon. 

The class was only a short reprieve. The next hour, they were back to drilling: more marksmanship, more wrestling. June was not going to recover fast like she hoped. The risk of pulling a muscle crept into the back of her mind, and she feared her condition worsening. She hoped soreness and blistering were the worst injuries she’d receive. Breaking bones was almost unthinkable. An injury like that might put her out of commission. 

Throughout it all, there was the menacing shadow of Sobel, looming over June like a watchtower. Whenever she lagged behind, he called her out by name, raising his voice over the other men and telling her just how disappointing her progress was. He called her _lazy_. He told her she wasn’t going to make it. He told her that she was a burden to the entire company, and that her inferior physique was going to get them all killed in action. 

She reasoned to herself that Sink had placed her in Sobel’s company with the knowledge that Sobel was like this. There had to have been a reason she was saddled with the toughest officer, the meanest men, and the most gruelling schedule that included overtime, more marches than any other company, and missed meals. So June forged onwards without any help from the others apart from brief glances and occasional helping hands that always disappeared before she could see who had pulled her up. 

But they weren’t there out of kindness. June saw the tired, frustrated glances of the men whenever she was acknowledged – which was not often. The men’s faces would drop into something vaguely upset or annoyed. She knew that she was only being pulled forwards because the Company was afraid of Sobel’s wrath. June was a magnet to his attention, and most often Sobel would come around to 2nd Platoon to watch her struggle. No one wanted to be the center of attention, so she’d rarely receive a hand hefting her forwards by her shirt, or someone grabbing her arm and pulling her roughly forward; it was only for the platoon to keep moving instead of having June slow them down. More frequent were “accidental” elbows jabbing her out of nowhere. 

Running was the only thing that kept her afloat. Finishing Currahee soon became the highlight of her day: she ran so far ahead in the pack that the break waiting for Sobel to come down the mountain was a small slot of time she could rest before the day became too overwhelming. 

When the company ran the obstacle course, June found it hard to keep up in the middle of the group. She was small, and the rungs of the confidence towers and the horizontal ladders made her go hot with anxiety. They slowed her down, but the brief spaces between obstacles gave her room to run faster. She had better acceleration than a lot of the other men. It didn’t give her an edge, but it helped her to keep from falling into total mediocrity. 

June wasn’t extremely worried about her own incompetence until it suddenly became very real. One day, the bed across from June was simply empty. She’d known private White to be very quiet – timid, even, and he usually hovered around the back of the pack. He was not one of the most athletic, but he was not unable to hold his own. June usually was able to match his pace or outdo him, if only by a few steps or seconds on the obstacle course. 

She wanted to ask where White had gone, but the other men of the billet stared only briefly at the space that had previously been occupied. Gone was the rifle and the helmet on the shelf and the hanging service uniform. The bed was neatly made, and the trunk was empty. It was almost like Private White had never been there. All traces of him had been erased. 

June then knew how easy it was to wash out. If Sobel could break Private White – a strong, full-grown man – then he could definitely break her. June could feel fissures at her edges, and fought to keep them from widening into fractures. She was not going to break. But she had no insurance: no one to run to, and no one to ask for help. If she cracked, it was all over.

Coates was busy at HQ, and June didn’t see him for days at a time. When they did meet, it was usually by coincidence in the mess hall, or in passing as they walked in opposite directions. They usually exchanged a brief greeting before moving on. June didn’t take it personally. They all had jobs to do, and Coates was not in charge of babysitting her. She was secretly relieved that he’d backed off despite the loneliness it caused. She didn’t want any rumors spreading around camp about what she was doing alone with any of the trainees. 

June already suspected that there was a healthy amount of whispering about what she did in the billets when no one was around. She didn’t want to encourage it. Guarnere practically lived with her and she suspected he _still_ thought she was a loose woman, despite the inordinately small pockets of time she had that would provide any potential privacy away from the collective company. He ignored her ninety percent of the time and gave her jaw-grinding glares the rest of the time, as if June personally wronged him by being in his general vicinity. 

June’s fear of Toye plateaued when she somehow heard of his fighting record: he was a brawler, and he was good at it, too. She got a general sense of what he was capable of. But June never saw evidence of his ferocity unless she happened to glance his way during combat drills, and even then the drills were only practice, not actual fighting. She still had to stand at attention next to him every morning. He never looked at her or acknowledged her. June took that as a good sign. 

Lipton was a slightly calmer presence compared to the others, but June didn’t get to take any comfort in it. He was nice, sure, but June got the sense that if something broke out between her and Sobel, or maybe her and one of the boys – God forbid she’d do anything to rile them up – Lipton wouldn’t really do anything about it. He was somewhat of an authoritative figure – all the other men seemed to respect him – but June was not his subordinate. She was not a part of the _group_. Lipton was. 

Winters was always hanging around Nixon, and the two of them were like a contradiction. Nixon always sauntered about with a knowing smirk, watching June as if she was a transitory fixture and not a permanent installation at Toccoa. If anyone thought she was going to wash out, Nixon was in on it. 

Winters, on the other hand, was the model of a stoic, dignified soldier. June was starting to regard him with a sense of wonder. He urged the men on with a sense of authority, and she could tell that everyone else was relieved when Sobel walked away and Winters started issuing orders. He wasn’t _nice_ , of course: he still handed out reprimands and punishments when men went out of line, especially when Sobel pushed him. Winters never afforded June a second glance, except when he happened to spot someone outright pushing her off the Currahee path, and made it obvious he’d seen. June was embarrassed that he thought she couldn’t deal with it on her own, but to her relief, he didn’t say anything about it. She dealt with the pushers by outrunning them. And it usually worked out.

The other Toccoa men weren’t friendly by any stretch. June learned most of the names of 2nd Platoon by the end of one week, but she hadn’t gotten to know any of them. No one wanted to talk to her, so she shrank into herself, only exchanging words when absolutely necessarily: brief one-word exchanges that ended before they even started. June only heard her own voice when she yelled responses to the NCOs and officers, and when someone asked her a direct question. 

June went to search out Bea a few times after dinner when the day wasn’t particularly gruelling – which in itself was a rare occurance. The women usually left camp much before Easy Company finished practice, so June never got to see if she was around. What would she say to her anyway? That she’d proved her wrong and that June was still at camp? The words seemed disingenuous. She was here in physical capacity, but her spirit was rejected by the men. She had made it through the first week of training, but it didn’t mean she was successful. 

June was settling in after a week. Her initial soreness had leveled out into a constant standard of pain every day, and the training was exhausting. She only stayed up to write or clean her weapon or run things to the laundry – otherwise she was fast asleep before lights-out, preferring not to dwell on her own thoughts for too long. It was relentless: wake up, run, jump, learn, fight, eat, shower, and go back to sleep.

Maybe that was why the men found it strange when she wasn’t back by 2200 that Friday night. They didn’t discuss it, but her empty cot told the billet that there was something strange going on. June slept whenever she could. So why wasn’t she back?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started school this week! I might not be as punctual with chapters and responding to comments from here on, but I'll certainly try my best.


	9. Men Without Women

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Mentions/depictions of attempted sexual assault.

It was Friday night again: the week had passed agonizingly slowly and June was looking forward to a weekend of sleep and healing. Her feet still needed to rest, and occasional twinges of pain bothered her whenever she was moving about vigorously. They had bled again – though not badly – on Wednesday, and they needed the rest as much as June’s mind and soul did. The possibility of a ruck march pressed on her in the back of her mind, and there was a fifty percent chance Easy would be forced on one that day. She ignored the thought – she’d deal with it when it happened. 

June had something to do that night, uniquely enough. After coming back from dinner, having pushed her food around on her plate anxiously for the third or fourth time that week, she hurried to brush her teeth and get her things in order just in case Sobel decided to bust inside at any time. 

June picked up Webster’s copy of _The Sun Also Rises_. She’d been meaning to return it days ago, but June hadn’t had the energy nor the motivation to get it to him. She was not looking forward to knocking on the door of another billet. Other men would see her, and it would be awkward for both of them. 

This early on Friday night, there were probably less people hovering around the billets. June tucked the book under her arm and left her bed, heading towards the door. Some of the men who were draped around the billet gave her curious glances seeing the book she had. She adjusted her grip, stepped down from the billet, and went in search of the third Fox Company billet, a little ways down from the Easy section. 

June found the billet much more swiftly than she would have liked to. It hadn’t even been more than two minutes by the time she stood in front of a door that looked like all the rest. She checked the ID on the building for the third time. It was correct. Webster was housed inside this one. 

She stood outside, becoming overly conscious of how her lingering could be interpreted. She told herself to get over it, and get the task of returning the book done quickly before more people saw her hovering outside a foreign billet, and she mounted the steps, hesitating before deciding to knock instead of opening the door without warning. She experienced a brief moment of irrational panic, imagining she’d copied down the wrong billet number or that she had misread the ID, before someone came to the door and cracked it open. 

The face that appeared was confused for a second, and his expression melted into a suggestive grin that June was beginning to find commonplace. 

“Is Webster here?” June asked, her face heating. She already felt like she’d done something wrong – something that would put both her and Webster in the attention of the other men of Toccoa. She didn’t want it to look like anything was _happening_.

“You bet he is, babe,” said the guy blocking June’s view inside the billet. He closed the door just enough so he could stand in the doorway, barring anyone from entering or exiting. “Whatcha need him for?” he said, still smiling wolfishly in the way June disliked. It made her uneasy, and he was eyeing her up and down like she was a girl up for grabs in town. 

June pulled the book out, holding it in front of her. She stared at the man flatly without any expression, trying to communicate her disinterest without making a scene. “This is his. I’m giving it back,” she said curtly, narrowing her eyes. Internally, she felt like screaming out of sheer discomfort. On second consideration, maybe this whole operation wasn’t the best idea. She heard muted crunches in the dirt behind her, and she wondered if people were watching, or if her audial acuity had simply grown better as a result of constant paranoia. Probably a little bit of both. 

A hand slid between the door and the blond man, and Webster appeared behind the man, pulling the door open wide. 

“Relax, Smithson,” said Webster nonchalantly, looking at the one blocking the door, and the man stepped away with his hands up in mock surrender.

“Have fun, Web,” Smithson said mockingly. He laughed, casting another appraising glance over June through the gap in the door. “Save a piece for me.”

June stared after Smithson with affront, her mouth opening slightly as she registered the implication. Webster looked only slightly perturbed, sparing a brief glance at the man but saying nothing. He returned his gaze to June, and she handed him the book, still reeling from the statement. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before, of course, because rude men were a dime a dozen at Toccoa – but this was the first time someone had actively insinuated that she was _involved_ with someone to her face. Webster standing a few feet away made it worse. 

“Thanks for the book,” she muttered darkly, not meeting his eyes. She was already turning away to go back to the billet. It was all a bad idea. Maybe she’d be able to sleep away the memory of this entire five-minute exchange. 

“Wait,” said Webster suddenly. “Did you want another one? For the weekend?” 

June turned around, mildly surprised that he didn’t want her gone immediately. 

“I didn’t mean to assume you don’t go off-base,” said Webster haltingly. “I mean, if you want another book you can have one. I have lots…” he trailed off, running out of things to say. 

“Whatcha got?” asked June, not smiling but her expression softening slightly. The attraction of books was irresistible. 

“Uh, more Hemingway,” he said, rattling off author names. “Fitzgerald,” he said. “Uh, Orwell? His name is George Orwell. His books are kind of weird,” he said, making a face. 

“Which Hemingway books?” asked June, intrigued. 

“ _A Farewell to Arms_ , _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ ,” he said. “Oh, also, uh, the short stories. It’s called _Men Without Women_ ,” he said awkwardly, with a few huffs of self-deprecating laughter – the type of laughter June knew very well. It was self-conscious, she recognized. “I don’t know why it’s named that,” he concluded. 

“Are you sure you want to just lend out your books?” said June, looking past him into a billet that looked relatively identical to June’s, except every cot was filled and it was a tad more messy. 

“Oh,” he laughed, sounding somewhat forced and abrupt. “It’s fine. I’ve read all of them.” He smiled, albeit maybe halfway.

“I’ll take the short stories, then,” said June, finally yielding to some expression that wasn’t an explicit frown. “Nice to see some people around here actually read literature,” she said. Webster laughed, for real this time, and went down the billet to get a book from his footlocker. He returned and handed it to June wordlessly. 

“Thank you,” said June. She put force behind the words. Webster was the first man to be remotely kind to her. “No one in Easy Company seems to want to lend me anything,” she said without thinking, and then she regretted it as Webster’s casual smile wavered. She’d broken the careful balance that was hanging in the air prior, and June could almost feel the shards of normalcy falling at their feet.

“No problem,” he said, with that expression she’d seen before – torn between pity and detachment or something, like he was suddenly reminded that she was a woman in a military camp that he probably should not be talking to. 

June knew the look. She didn’t know what she’d expected: someone like Coates to just exist and be nice to her? It was too good to be true, and June wanted to hit herself for having hope in Webster. It wasn’t his responsibility. He didn’t owe her anything at all. She nodded, looking down, not bothering with a proper goodbye if they weren’t going to actually get to know each other. It was probably better that way – not to forge a contrived sense of friendliness without any substantive feeling.

June turned around and left the billet, walking down the rows to the Easy Company area. She was foolish for thinking someone would just lend her books like that. What was he thinking? What was she thinking? Did he want something back from her? Attention? Was he just another one of the guys, trying to get her in his bed but being devious about it? June groaned and kicked at the road. She was being stupid. She’d finish the book, return it, and stop talking to him. 

As she approached her assigned billet, she looked down at the book in her hands and knew she wasn’t looking forward to re-entering the building with all eyes always following her and loud talking in the background. June decided to go somewhere else. She checked her watch: it was around 2000, and she had two hours to burn. She quickly deposited the book in her footlocker because it was too dark out to read, not sparing a glance to take stock of who was in the billet, and she darted out just as quickly.

June took an unexpected turn and ended up looking out over the practice field. The track called, but she knew her feet weren’t ready. The camp was already darkened, and lay tucked under a blanket of stars. June walked out with hands in her pockets, eyes on the rising moon. The sky was clear and the air was still warm, and she walked all the way across the empty field, feeling the bluish night-tinted grass under her boots and the shift of breeze that tangled out from inside the forest. June found herself right at the edge of it a few moments later, staring into the dark, tall mass of trees and leaves. 

June grew up in an urbanized area. Forests had always interested her, perhaps because of the novelty of never getting to see them. She knew that many of the boys at Toccoa had probably grown up around forests – maybe in them, hunting and shooting and playing Cowboys and Indians. Sometimes June felt rather foolish by being amused by the concept of wildlife growing in one local proximity. She supposed this was the natural state of things, the forest; San Francisco had been host to wild things too before people had mowed it over with cement and civilization. It was the order of the land before Manifest Destiny and the port men arrived hand in hand.

She sat down against a tree, facing the clearing and the camp, spread out before her. Each billet was like a lantern: glowing transparently from within, the thin wooden walls and tarps creating a papery lamplike effect, with the yellow light pushing through the corners. She couldn’t see as far as HQ or the offices from her slightly elevated place against the trees, but she could make out the lay of the land by the placement of the lights all around camp.

It was nice and quiet away from all the men. The sound of cicadas rose and fell in a rhythmic wave around June, and the static background noise wove into the drumbeat of her heart. Rare relaxation leaked into June’s veins, bringing with it the smell of earth and dew and the universe. Time almost seemed to stop in this pocket of the world where June was alone with the lady bugs and mosquitoes. She leaned heavily against the tree and leaned back, and closed her eyes. 

♤

June didn’t mean to fall asleep, but she awoke with a start against the tree. She looked out at camp and about half the billets had gone dark. It was almost time for lights-out. If Sobel conducted a bed check, she was doomed. June leapt up, dusted off the backside of her ODs, and took off running across the field, feeling oddly exposed even though no one could have seen her in the dark. 

When June came back into the range of the light of a nearby billet, she checked her watch. It was 2207. An icy slide of panic overtook her, and she sprinted towards her billet, fearing the worst and trying to concoct an excuse in her head. There were none, really, and she felt at a loss as she dashed through rows and rows until she reached her company section. Sobel was nowhere to be seen, or at least he wasn’t stalking between billets. June hoped he didn’t happen to be inside hers at that very moment, and she crunched quietly towards her billet.

A few stray men were still returning to their billets. June hoped she looked just like another one of the casual stragglers. 

She heard a shift in the dirt. 

She froze against the side of one of the farthest Easy Company billets, hoping to stay silent. If it was Sobel, her stint in the military was finished. She would be sent out the next day, or maybe even now. 

June told herself she was being ridiculous, and she took a few deep breaths to try and calm the haywire flutter of her pulse.

The steps in the gritty sand were irregular, unlike Sobel’s heavy rhythmic gait. June listened closely. The footsteps staggered, as if the person was listing side to side. There was a fair bit of heavy breathing coming from his hidden position between billets. June sighed. It was most likely a drinking soldier, making his way back to his barracks before an officer could catch him. 

June intended to walk past as quickly as possible, and maybe the drunk soldier wouldn’t see her, and she’d pass by without comment. She took a deeper breath, and stepped back out into the open, making as little noise as possible. Her ODs swished, the rougher fabric creating friction. Her boots still crunched in the dirt, and she hastened her pace. 

Even though June had a general idea of where the soldier was lingering, he took her by surprise, intercepting her path. He clearly was making a beeline towards June, and she couldn’t outrun him in the time it took for him to step out of the shadows. 

“Hey, girl,” said the guy, looking not too light on his feet. June could tell from a few feet away that he was definitely inebriated. He dragged a hand across the wall of a billet, and June cringed at the loudness of the brushing against the tarp. “I was waitin’ for ya.”

June looked around, trying to get past the guy, but something struck her as familiar. Light hit his face and June’s stomach dropped. It was Smithson, the one from Fox. She took another step back, because he was coming for her fast. 

June sidestepped as he was almost on her, and she tried to swing far around him and walk to the other side. He was drunk and, from what she could tell, out of his mind. He must have been very, very drunk, June noticed, because he lurched a few times. Just as she was almost past, Smithson’s hand shot out and clasped a vice-like grip around June’s arm. 

“Why you runnin’?” he said, leaning closer. June tried to tear her arm out of his hand, the combined shuffling of both of their boots in the sand the only noise in the air. Her heart was beating fast, and she leaned away from Smithson’s face, trying to pry his grip off her sleeve with her other hand. His fingers held on tight, and he started to tighten his grip even more. June let out an involuntary hiss of anxiety. 

“Let go of me,” she whispered, starting to breathe faster. She dug her feet into the sand as Smithson tried to tug her somewhere else. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“You don’t wanna have some fun?” said Smithson, words bleeding into each other, ignoring June’s protests. “I know you wanna, _June_.”

For some reason, the way he said her first name was jarringly terrifying. June was pulling at her arm desperately now, trying to get away. Smithson stood like an anchor, resolutely tugging her in the opposite direction of her billet, which was only a few feet away. Smithson was drunk and swaying, but somehow June still could not overpower him. He had more than a few inches on her and probably thirty or so pounds. 

“Stop,” she whispered frantically. “Get off me,” she said, her voice rising in a tone of panic. Now, she wasn’t sure if she liked the darkness so much anymore. It obscured Smithson’s face, casting it heavily in shadow, and his eyes shined from beneath a veil of black. 

Smithson had a humorless half-smile on his face. “Come on,” he said. “Stop strugglin’.”

June pulled violently at her arm, trying to peel his fingers off her arm. Smithson got wise and smacked her other hand away, and grabbed her other shoulder painfully. June bit back a cry of surprise, and tried to duck out from under his grip. Smithson held on and his fingers pressed into her skin. June felt herself weakening. The week had taken its toll. She was in no state to fight.

She tried to push him off, but it was no use. Smithson held on tight and leaned closer. In a moment of clarity, June hooked a leg behind Smithson and jammed it against the back of his knee. With a huff of surprise, Smithson went down and took June down with him, both hitting the ground hard. June groaned, because she’d landed on her right side with nothing to shield her fall. Smithson had let go of her momentarily in surprise. June rolled over and got on her hands and knees, crawling away from Smithson. 

“Come here,” ground out Smithson dangerously, and he clasped a hand around her ankle, pulling her back. June’s hands scrabbled in the dirt, but she felt Smithson rise up behind her. She jerked her ankle away, but Smithson pulled back, and she landed in the dirt again, flat on her back. She was breathing hard, body tensed. She forgot her soreness as her body primed for a fight, fear filling the corners of her imagination. 

She would not let the last of her memory at the camp be that of a whisper and a rumor of assault. She would not let Smithson take what he wanted. She would fight with her dying breath if it meant she won.

In the back of her mind, she was aware that they were making noise, thrashing about in the sand. Smithson wasn’t whispering anymore, and June wasn’t either, kicking out at Smithson and somehow landing a hit in the dark as he would not let go of her leg. 

“Let go,” June growled loudly. “Get off!” 

Smithson grabbed at her other leg. “Be quiet, _bitch_ ,” he hissed, and June landed another weak glancing kick, probably to his shoulder. Involuntary tears of panic were gathering in the corners of her eyes, and she made another push to get free of Smithson. 

He grabbed farther up on her thigh, and a new wave of panic rushed over June. She rolled over onto her back, giving up on jerking her leg out of Smithson’s grip, and she ignored her aching muscles, sitting up and throwing a blind punch out into the direction of his head. She missed, and Smithson yelled something vicious. Now she was on her back, and Smithson took advantage, pinning her down by the shoulders and hovering over her. 

June approached a precipice of fear and terror. There was no telling if she’d get away now. Smithson was grabbing at her ODs, and had his knees over June’s legs. She tried to get them up and slide out from under, but there was nowhere to go, and Smithson leaned close enough that June could smell his hot breath, sour with alcohol. She turned her face to the side. 

“Stop moving,” slurred Smithson, pawing at the buttons of her ODs. A moment later, with almost debilitating shock, she felt his hands pulling at the buckle of her belt, uncoordinated and heavy.

Caught between blind panic and alarm, June somehow gathered the strength to wrench her right leg free from Smithson’s weight. Before he could jab his knee back into her thigh, she surged upwards, hitting him between the legs. 

“Shit,” Smithson spat, weakening momentarily, and June scrambled out from under him, finally free from his hands. June watched him for another second warily, and Smithson launched himself back at her. June reeled back, took one breath, and caught Smithson in the side of the face with a lucky punch. Her fist exploded into pain, and June watched Smithson rub at his cheek, shocked. 

June scuttled away, out of reach of Smithson, but he recovered fast from the punch, and despite his impaired reflexes, he moved fast, landing a solid punch to June’s temple. She saw stars and couldn’t move for a few seconds – pain bloomed across her skull and she felt like something broke in her head. The pressure of Smithson’s hit lingered like a phantom pain weighing on her skull. Smithson seemed satisfied, and he resumed getting at her shirt. June felt fingers tugging at the collar of her PT shirt, and his other slid under the hem, brushing up against the bottom of her ribs, and she was filled with one last burst of desperate, savage adrenaline. She threw everything she had into one last punch to Smithson’s throat, and she felt the flesh around his neck under the weight of her fist. Her own knuckles already started to ache, and she scooted back on one arm as Smithson’s hands went to his throat with a muffled scream. 

June watched Smithson with some sort of traumatized immobile shock. His hands wrapped around his throat as he heaved shivery breaths in and out, and June thought for a moment, foolishly, that she might have killed him with a little more power. Then she shook herself, scrabbling backwards with more fear falling deep into her bones, body still running high on fight-or flight. 

The fighting was over. It was time to run. 

Everyone around had probably heard them scuffling. June hoped no one was going to come out of their billets to investigate. June could now be thrown out of Toccoa for fighting. She looked at Smithson in terror, now crouched almost pathetically in the dirt, facedown and half braced on splayed elbows. He’d complain to his NCO, who would tell the officers, who would report it to someone in HQ – or worse, Sink directly. June would be deemed a nuisance who posed a danger to the other soldiers, and she’d be reprimanded and demanded to leave camp the same night. 

Smithson would be able to bend the story to his own interests. Everyone would believe him over her. Besides, she’d wanted it, they’d say: a lone woman joining the Army to go and try and sleep in the same rooms as all the other men was bound to try this kind of thing eventually. There was no way she didn’t enjoy at least a part of the attention. 

June knew the shame that came from being harassed, like it was her fault for being tossed around into submission. If June hadn’t stayed out alone after nightfall, or if she hadn’t lingered at Webster’s door for as long as she did, she might not have attracted the attention of Smithson. 

She looked back at him warily, anticipating that he’d surge back up and make another grab at her, maybe this time get a hand under her bra or into her pants. Smithson was still kneeling and panting heavily, holding his throat.

June got up and staggered away, not knowing why she’d even stayed to watch her assaulter scratch about on the ground in the first place. Maybe a sick sense of satisfaction, or maybe it was just a dissociative shock. She left Smithson behind, heaving in the dust. She’d done it – she’d gotten him off her, all by herself. It was a horrible kind of fulfillment: the reason why she’d fought him on her own was only because no one was nearby to help. 

James would be proud, June realized in a moment of ironic thoughtfulness. 

Boots on the ground filtered through the buzz of the static of night, and she turned around, realizing she was standing in the distance between billet rows. She was out of the narrow shadows between the houses and in the open air of the main road that carved down camp, with billet doors lining the path. 

June was hyper-aware of the sound. Wind whistled through the camp, fluttering tarps and through leaves. 

She thought it was Smithson, at first, and she took a few steps back, going to find her billet again and throw herself inside, hoping that Smithson wouldn’t dare come after her when she was inside with other men. He stepped into the light, and it wasn’t Smithson, but June hated the way she flinched backwards reflexively, her head pounding with blood once more. 

The man’s face was cast in shadow. He was taller and slimmer than Smithson. June didn’t move, because she could see that he was an officer from his uniform. The pinprick glow of a lit cigarette shone against his mouth. She was dead this time: truly dead. Whether this man wanted to assault her or throw her in the brig or take her directly to Sink, June had no more energy left to do anything more. 

He moved closer, stepping casually down the rows, and June heard Smithson groan. She cringed at the sound, though resigned to whatever fate awaited her in this cursed hour of crisis, and the officer cast a glance into the shadows between her billet and the next one. She knew Smithson was lying in that gap, and the officer had seen him. 

“That bitch,” came a muffled mutter from Smithson, who coughed. “She came outta nowhere and jumped me,” he said. 

June saw the officer lean into the shadows. She didn’t know what passed between Smithson and the officer, but the man leaned back into the light after a few moments, and started walking towards June. 

A gust of wind picked up again, and June realized her shirt was torn open and her PT shirt was on display. She hastily buttoned up the OD jacket with trembling fingers, and she started to redo her belt, the metal clinking loudly as she tried to grab the buckle and force the tail of the webbing back in. It took her a few tries, and by the time she got herself dressed again, the officer was in front of her.

June stood at attention with all the energy she could spend, fear now washing through her: fear at her fate, fear of the officer, and fear of Smithson, who was lying still somewhere in the gravel. 

The officer heaved a sigh. 

“Let’s get you back to your billet,” said the officer finally around the cigarette, looking down at June and letting smoke curl from the corner of his mouth. She finally saw his eyes, which somehow gathered darkness around them. His face was still unclear, but June was sure she hadn’t seen him before. He was from another company, maybe: from another side of Toccoa. 

The statement registered to June. She wasn’t being taken to the brig, and she stumbled along in shock towards her billet while the officer trailed behind, both of them leaving Smithson behind. 

June cleared her throat quietly and rubbed at her face, which was starting to throb. Her cheekbone hurt something awful, and when June toughed the area, it was worse. She dropped her hand. 

“Permission to speak, sir,” said June, hating the shakiness in her voice.

“Granted,” said the officer almost immediately, taking a relaxed drag.

“Private Smithson, he, uh…” said June, struggling to come up with the words. “He’s injured,” she said lamely, brushing at her arm unconsciously where Smithson had grabbed her first. 

“Don’t worry about him,” said the officer simply, and the pair was again in silence until June reached the door of her billet. 

“Sir–” started June, stepping away from him in discomfort, somewhat unconsciously. “What…” she trailed off. “What’s gonna–”

“Private,” said the officer, cutting her off. “It was self-defense.”

June stared at him in shock. The officer offered no reaction, standing expressionless.

“No one needs to know, sir,” said June, out on a limb. It was risky to say, almost disrespectful. She was desperate though, and willing to walk the line between indignance and impropriety. 

It didn’t matter how nice she said it if she was going to be thrown out the next day.

The officer tilted his head, cigarette glowing as he took it into his hand. “Do they?” he said, and ice ran cold in June’s bones. Panic once again slipped over her like an old, familiar presence. It was what she’d felt, after all, every day of the week on-base. 

The officer’s lips curved upwards briefly, and June was struck by the oddity of the situation. She tried to shake the strangely exposed feeling that he was laughing at her, but she took another step back, feeling a wave of caution at his sudden display of unpredictability. 

The smile dropped from his face entirely in one terrifying second, and June backed away. But the officer was already walking away from her. He stopped and dropped the finished cigarette onto the ground, and twisted his boot about into the ashes. He turned around for one second, just enough for June to see his mouth move. 

“Goodbye, Private,” he said briefly before slipping back into the shadows where he merged with the pressing night. June was left staring into the dark at the spot he once inhabited; the only hint to his presence ever having been real a moment before was the still-flickering glow of the cigarette dying on the ground. 

June didn’t feel as if she was at a loss for breath; her head pounded. She rubbed absently at the twinge on her cheek, thinking about _him_. _Forget Smithson_ , she told herself, opening the billet door as quietly as possible. She was dead on her feet, tired beyond measure. The billet door creaked, but she shut it without energy, barely managing to guide it closed without losing all energy in her arm once she was within the bounds of wood and out of reach of the starlight and reaching fingers.

If June had felt more energetic, perhaps _normal_ , she’d have sat down and cried in that very spot right inside the billet. But she wasn’t feeling that way – instead, she stood silently in front of the door, very much awake and drained and battered. She made her way to her cot and took off her ODs without seeing in the darkness – a small comfort that she could not see the state of her own knuckles, which were probably reddening and swelling already.

After she was in bed, staring up at the blackness of the lightless ceiling, June wondered if the men beside her were asleep. The billet seemed more devoid of snoring than usual, and she sat up suddenly, somehow summoning the energy to wonder if some men weren’t even in their beds. The silence was unusual. 

Then, June felt the floorboards creaking and someone walking about the room. She’d had enough surprises for one night, and so she let them approach her, hoping with all her heart it would be nothing more than a scare tactic or a grope that she could hit away with her rifle. Her hand snaked out from under the sheets, touching the cool wood of her M-1 Garand.

The flick of a lighter near her face startled June, and she gasped when the glow of light illuminated two faces: Skip and Penkala, leaning closer than June preferred. She gasped and almost fell out of her bed, kicking up her sheets to jerk back and hitting the back of her head against the billet. She curled away from them, terrified, breathing hard as she pulled her legs up to her chest and stared at the two of them. A third, Malarkey, joined the duo, and he flicked on his lighter, casting it closer to June’s face until she could feel the heat. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice scratchy and quivering. She eyed the flame, swallowing in her half-delirious state of fear.

If they were going to burn her, they should do it quickly and let her sleep. 

“Shit, June. You fight?” said Skip, and she realized all three were looking at her cheekbone. She touched it absently and felt a sting at the contact, reminded that Smithson had socked her square in the side of the face. If it was already red, that was unfortunate.

June didn’t do anything except look back at the three of them with bewildered fear.

Malarkey sighed and extinguished his lighter. “Who did that?” he whispered.

June looked down. “You don’t need to know,” she whispered. If they sought Smithson out, he’d just tell them that June had started it. 

“Was it an Easy guy?” pressed Penkala. June didn’t see anything of his face except for the corner of his temple and one eye that was looking at her. The flame of the lighter danced in the shine of his iris. 

June didn’t answer. She just looked back at them with open anticipation. Her fists were clenched in her lap and her jaw was fixed. She gave a slight shake of the head to the negative.

Finally, Skip leaned back and sighed, and June could make out the vague outline of his hand running through his hair. 

“Leave her alone and go to sleep,” hissed a voice from the front corner of the room – Perconte, maybe. 

“We’re going, Perco,” hissed Malarkey and Skip together, and all three disappeared into the shadows, the last lighter flicking closed. 

June stayed curled up in the corner, for an hour or three, maybe, jumping at any random noise. She eventually fell asleep in the position, bunched against the wall, sheets pulled up to her chest. 

There was no march that Friday. Rumor went around that Sobel had forgotten to wake up that midnight. 

In the morning, some of the men looked at June for longer than necessary as they got into their uniforms and went out for the weekend. Most of the men stayed in because almost the entire platoon had their passes revoked at one time or another. 

When June awoke, she yawned and looked around the billet with something beyond a casual stare. Her gaze was loaded with a deeper need to take in every aspect of her surroundings – every corner, staking stock of every person, every bed – and Lipton didn’t miss it. She turned her head, and there was a large bruise blanketing the left side of her face. 

Even Liebgott, usually ready with something snarky to say in the slow wake-up of the morning light, fell silent. The men who left went quickly, but the ones who stayed that Saturday either avoided looking at June or stared. June was uncomfortable, but that was nothing new. She slept through breakfast and laid in her bed until almost noon, unable to summon the energy to face the world again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! 
> 
> However, this is a heavy chapter. I'm sorry if it wasn't what you were looking forward to. 
> 
> I grappled with the material a lot and went through multiple rounds of edits and beta-reading before publishing. I went back and forth on even publishing this chapter, and I had to take a lot of time to consider the repercussions of trauma. As the series progresses, I have done my best to integrate this experience into June's character. I assure you, this is not a throwaway plot point. I am not one to inflict a huge amount of emotional and physical distress on anyone without weighing the impact as realistically I can. Any failure of mine to be realistic and patient with June's suffering reflects on my own shortcomings as a writer and as a person with empathy. My hope is to convey the spirit of humanity in my writing, even if this is just a little dumb fanfic; it necessitates the portrayal of the highs of life but also the rock-bottom of injustice and pain. 
> 
> I hope never to reduce the suffering of real-life victims of sexual assault. For anyone who has gone through this unimaginable suffering, I extend my deepest sympathy and regret. 
> 
> Thank you for being patient with me :)


	10. Powder Barrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath, and the painful way these things must leave physical and invisible evidence of their happening.

June didn’t want to go outside, but she distracted herself with sleep, telling herself that she was just tired. Whenever Smithson’s name floated up in her subconscious, she pushed it back down and tried to distract herself immediately by doing something else. 

At one point, June got herself out of bed, shaking the sheets off. She duly noted that there was a bruise on her bicep where Smithson had grabbed her, and she stretched out the collar of her PT shirt, looking for another bruise on her opposite shoulder. Both were red and concentrated, but not so severe-looking – just large. The one on her face, though, was especially bad. People wouldn’t stop looking at it. 

She forgot to check her legs, but when she swung them off the bed, there was a twinge in her upper thigh where Smithson had jammed his knees into her. She rubbed at it, wishing it would come off like a layer of paint. All the reddish-purple spots diffusing just under her skin were going to attract attention. She flexed her fingers and found her right hand’s knuckles reddened and damaged. There were mottled ruddy stains under her skin, gathering around the white joints of her hand. 

June didn’t bother to change out of her PT gear. When she really gave herself permission to go to the bathroom and make the long journey to brush her teeth and shower, and when she couldn’t keep denying to herself that she needed to relieve herself, she forced herself up and put on her service uniform absently. She hung around her bed for a few more minutes than necessary, and then she went out into camp, half-jogging her way out of the billet and then high-tailing it out of the housing area, taking the long way to the office, which involved going out to the border of the field and then wading through brush for a few feet until she came up on the bathroom from the side. 

June held onto some desperate hope that no one had seen her – and if they had, she’d been moving too fast for them to properly identify the huge shiner on her face. The entire trip was riddled with an anxiety that wasn’t completely foreign, but nevertheless to an extreme she’d never felt before.

June locked herself in the bathroom, taking deep breaths, and then decided she’d stand on one of the toilet seats to look out the small square window to dispel the creeping notion that someone had followed her, if only to lend herself some solace. 

June knew in her mind that no one would follow her, of course. 

Once she assured herself that there was no waiting figure, June stepped down from the toilet, giving herself a small shake, and brushed her teeth and took a long, hot shower. She was going to make use of this bathroom: her small private safe haven, the only place where no man was going to bother her. June was sure that almost none of the Toccoa men even knew about this out-of-the-way bungalow behind the administrative buildings, and she’d never been more glad of anything. 

June didn’t put on any makeup. She didn’t have the energy, nor the spirit. She got into her uniform, thankful that the long sleeves and long pants covered most of the bruising. 

But there was the problem of her face. 

When June first looked at herself in the mirror in the bathroom, she almost made a sound out loud of disbelief. The punch that he had landed hadn’t felt excessively hard, maybe because of the shock and the adrenaline that she felt reeling back after the blow. The way he had hit her, though, had caused bleeding under her skin between her right temple and her upper cheekbone. The blood was a deep purple-red, and June was thankful he hadn’t gotten at her eye. The swelling made her cheekbone area puffier than usual, and June was most upset about the subtle but noticeable bulk around her eye. She prodded the spot with her fingers, wincing. There was no bag of ice to be found anywhere except for the aid station, and June wasn’t going anywhere near there for fear of being seen injured by any important people. She was going to stay away from HQ if she could bear it for a week.

June saw the incident as a liability. Even though Smithson had been the one to inflict violence on her, June was responsible for injuring Smithson, too. She’d heard of people being busted down ranks for fighting. She figured if she was already at the bottom, there was nowhere else to go but out. Whichever way she looked at the situation, if the incident got out and back to Sink, she’d be told to pack her bags and go home. 

If June was accused of fighting, she’d go home. If she accused Smithson of attempted assault, she’d go home because she would be too much of a distraction and a magnet for violent incidents. If she claimed she’d only defended herself against Smithson, someone might point out that she wasn’t supposed to be outside after lights-out, therefore no one was liable for her unsafety if she’d disobeyed commands. There was no way out, and June had to take the hard pain of hiding the injury and bearing it. 

It did not cross June’s mind for one second to consider ending it all and packing up. She was here and she was going to bear it until someone had to haul her out of Toccoa themselves.

She decided she was going to try and put on a thick layer of foundation and powder in the place where there was heavy bruising. 

When June was done with the makeup, it felt strange. She hadn’t worn foundation in months, because heavy makeup was for special occasions. The tint only covered the discoloration partially: it cut the bruised look by about half, but there was still a blue-red shadow underneath. June let out her hair and let it hang loose in front of her face and looked at her bruise in the mirror again. It was a little better, but the red crept a little farther out than her hair could cover. It was the best she could do.

Well, this _was_ a special occasion, June reasoned. Just not a fortunate one. 

She packed up and left the bathroom, taking the long way again, and she came back to the billet, running inside before anyone hanging around on the outside could get a good look. When she shut the door behind her, June was surprised to see almost the entire billet still in the room. Sobel _had_ taken a lot of weekend passes that week. It seemed this was just another one of the times where almost no one got to go out. 

She felt the eyes on her as she went back to her bed, and by this day, she was almost used to it. It happened almost every time she went in or out of the billet. June had concluded she just needed to deal with it if she wanted to be treated like an equal – which was hopefully going to happen sometime, ever. She looked around, making it clear she knew they were staring, and the men dropped their heads. June rarely acknowledged the attention, but she was getting tired of it. 

June dug _Men Without Women_ out of her trunk, and pressed herself into her bed, scooting as far into the wall as she could, and she started to read. 

After about thirty minutes of being left alone, June felt someone approaching her cot before she heard footsteps. She snapped the book shut and flinched back, groping for her rifle. It was a comforting feeling: the smooth wood and cold metal. 

Roe stood there, looking slightly concernedly at June’s hand braced on the rifle and the other cocked back in a fist. He sighed and nodded to the edge of June’s cot. She looked at him in confusion. 

“Can I sit?” he asked. June nodded wordlessly. This was the first time anyone asked her anything so casually personal. Even when other men were playing card games nearby on the next bed, somehow June’s area was off-limits. No one asked, and no one sat on her bed. 

Roe pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. “Mind if I–” he said, gesturing to the cigarette that he’d already stuck in his mouth, lighter in hand. June nodded, and watched him open the lighter and flick at the wheel, orange flame catching on the white cigarette. Roe considered her for a second, not invasively, but thoughtfully. “Want one?” he mumbled around his cigarette as he dug the rest of the pack out, shaking one loose. June took it and he lit her cigarette for her, holding the flame closer to her face as she mouthed at the end of it, sucking in smoke when the end ignited. The flame reminded her of the previous night, when Malarkey had held fire up to her face to look at the contusion. It was a sudden thought, and not full of comfort, though it was more familiar than foreign.

The other men about the room were minding their own business; some of them more pointedly than others. Roe looked down at his hands, letting smoke out of his nose. June watched him carefully from her end of the bed. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, but she was more comfortable scrunched into a small space. She held Webster’s book in her lap, absently feeling at the pages.

“Can I see your arm?” he said, breaking the smoky stillness.

June looked at Roe, and an unexpected burn of aggravation flared up in her. His concern was frustrating for some reason she couldn’t place, just like how she’d gotten mad at Luz. Her gaze hardened very slightly, betraying her inner dialogue by a small margin, and Roe leaned back, confused and perceptive and gentle. Like always.

June hated how gentle Roe was. It made rejecting him so much harder. He seemed like a nice guy, from what he showed. Out of all the Toccoa men, he had never physically jabbed at her or stared daggers at her, at least from what she remembered. He’d adopted a dangerously calming demeanor. 

But it didn’t mean they were friends.

June made no move to show him her arm. There was no cure for a bruise except covering it up and waiting for it to go away. There was no point in asking to see the injuries, unless Roe had a use for the information. Her eyes narrowed. Maybe someone asked him to check them out and give a diagnosis. June couldn’t think of anyone remotely concerned for her well-being except for Coates, possible Sink, and… their NCO.

“Did Lipton put you up to this?” hissed June scathingly, taking the cigarette out of her mouth and raptly watching Roe’s eyes. She wasn’t even sure why she herself hated the idea so much, but June felt as if she was being coddled. Pitied. She didn’t need pity from Lipton She didn’t need pity from Roe. Everyone struggled under Sobel. Everyone suffered in their own ways. It made her feel so pathetic, being treated like this. Roe never treated her like glass or even tried to help her deal with her own wounds except for getting her some extra medical supplies. But June couldn’t shake the feeling she was being _helped_. 

Help. June wanted to spit the term, even in her own thoughts. She didn’t need help. She didn’t want anything special from anyone. 

June saw Roe register the chaotic expressions flitting across her face. He looked suddenly hesitant and looked away. “He didn’t need to,” Roe offered in response to June. 

She looked at Roe with an expression of frustrated fury. _Help_ , she wanted to spit at him. _I don’t need anything from you._ Roe had the audacity to act as if he actually cared. June looked around, knowing everyone was looking at her with something worse than apathy or hostility: pity.

“Stop looking at me like that,” June said, riding on a burst of angry courage to the room. They had no right to, and she was going to tell them so. After the previous night there was no point in tiptoeing around the issue of _her_.

The air was getting warm and still, and the atmosphere inside was stifling. June didn’t want to be inside with everyone else anymore – she needed to escape it all for a few moments. She wanted to be alone.

June ignored Roe, scooping up her book and getting out of the bed, ignoring her sore joints, pointedly ignoring anyone else. She retrieved some paper and a pen from her footlocker and stalked out of the billet without another glance, letting the door swing closed behind her with a satisfying _thunk_. Her feet moved below her, taking her off to some place she didn’t fully know until her feet hit grass and she looked up. 

She stood at the base of Currahee, looking up at the summit of the mountain that brushed the sky. She looked down. Her feet were on the grassy seam where the slope of the mountain started. 

June tucked her letter-writing instruments into the book and started the three miles up the mountain. 

On the way, the cadences the men chanted running up and down Currahee made their way into her head, and despite June’s intention to run away from it all, including the traditions of Toccoa, she saw the irony of trying to leave the camp behind while hiking up the definitive symbol of Easy Company. 

_Fall upon the risers, fall upon the grass_ , June repeated in her head. _We never land upon our feet, we always hit our ass_.

June didn’t even know what risers were. She had a vague idea that risers were paratrooper things – maybe they had to do with parachutes, since the line was about landing after a jump. She sighed. If she even got that far in training, she’d find out eventually. 

Right before the top, another chant popped into June’s head – one of the more brief ones, and one of the rare cadences that Sobel expected the men to repeat after him. She recalled the howling dominance of Sobel’s voice, demanding a reply. 

_What does Currahee mean?_ Sobel called.

 _We stand alone_ , the men always responded between pants. June knew there was something after that Sobel always said. There was another part of the chant – maybe one or two more lines about Easy Company. June thought about it for the remainder of her climb, but she couldn’t come up with it. 

_We stand alone_ echoed in June’s head as she reached the tip of Currahee, turning around to see Toccoa laid out in front of her like the network of a city – streets and paths networking across the camp like veins, and the billets, the field, HQ, and other building standing out in large blocks of color. Green and tan, sandy and broad and nothing like anything June had ever seen before arriving to Toccoa. 

A gust of wind shook the trees, and June sat down on the cement block, watching the shiver of the sparse, thin plants on the top of the mountain as their leaves were shook free and thrown to the ground. June never stopped to admire nature on Currahee: there was no time, and arguably no other opportunity where she’d make a necessary trip up to the top. 

There weren’t as many birds up where the evergreens were rare, but a few butterflies flew past June, flashing orange as their wings flapped with a balance of fragility and grace. A trail of ants marched past the cement block. There was a single bird of prey in the sky, wheeling silently and surveying the ground below, flapping its wings lazily in the afternoon sun. 

June didn’t feel like writing a letter. She’d already written her obligatory note to her family, finding it rather painful to recount the events of the week and cull the events worth mentioning from memory. She’d carefully inserted situations in which she was not the center of attention: usually she simply talked about the activities Easy was made to do, and not the resulting pain and struggle. 

She wondered when the letter to Everett would reach him, or if it would ever get to him at all. The Pacific was a wide and infinite sea, and shipping was difficult when there were so many soldiers and so little room for mail on ships. She hoped she’d had the correct serial, unit, and company. He was probably on some airfield or base somewhere. She didn’t think there was fighting going on yet. 

Up from the top of Currahee, Toccoa didn’t seem so bad. It was actually a nice sight: not postcard-nice, but nice in the sense that every man at camp was driven by a sense of duty and patriotism to protect and to fight. She watched barely-visible specks of individual soldiers swarm between billets, walking down paths and lining the thoroughfares. There was a baseball game on, like every weekend, and June knew some of the Easy boys were in the field, playing. A few of the boys were out of town, leering at girls in short skirts and getting drunk on cheap beer before officers could catch them wreaking havoc on the movie theaters and bars. June could imagine some of the men taking walks around the compound, talking to their friends, and staying over at other billets, playing poker, reading, sleeping, or making up some new card game to pass the warm, rhythmic hours. 

June imagined the life that was exploding out of Toccoa. It was a camp stuffed full of energy: young men bursting at the seams with a will to fight and a body to obey orders. Each man had their own lives and a family they left behind, June realized. These men were from the farthest corners of America, brought together by a preference to show their goodwill. And it manifested in a rather suicidal desire to jump out of planes. From New York to Los Angeles, men had gathered to train to fight.

June was one of them. Just one of them. But it didn’t feel right. June knew it might never feel right like she hoped. They reacted to her in disgust, mystified by her flagrant resistance to gender conformity. She supposed she was an anomaly – and people were scared of what they did not understand. June recalled Roosevelt’s speech when he was elected – she was twelve years old, and her family had huddled around the small radio. _The only thing to fear is fear itself_.

June snorted at how ridiculous a phrase it was. She knew it was meant to be inspiring, but at the time the Diedtrich family had been in dire straits, living on enough food for one meal portion a day. It had gotten exponentially better in the following ten years. But right then, June feared a loss of control, weakness, and hell, the other men. No wonder she felt like she couldn’t function. The men were the source of her fear, and she was in the middle of a men-only military camp.

It was unavoidable – the pressing presence of _risk_ all around: like a thousand boots ready to drop as one, like the buzzing kinetic energy of things poised above the hold of gravity before their thunderous descent to the earth. Potential was always there. June had just never been vigilant enough to catch the things before they started to fall.

June sighed. She couldn’t force anyone to like her. She didn’t care, frankly, if they liked her or not. She absently wondered if that was part of the problem. 

She couldn’t force anyone to just leave her alone, either. It was not something that could be done.

She didn’t want to think about it, so she stared out at Toccoa again, trying to empty her mind. There was nothing but chaos when she tried for emptiness, though: flashes of thought, splinters of ideas, and shards of memory converged if she attempted to go silent.

Sighing, June rose and smacked dust off the book, which she’d put down on the ground beside her. She stretched out her legs and her back from their scrunched-up position of sitting, and she breathed deeply in the clean summer air. Then, she went back down the mountain, now really knowing why she’d gone up in the first place. 

♤

When June got down to the billets, she was overcome with an overwhelming desire to sleep.

Sleep was nice. It was something to lose herself in – she forgot about everything wrong in the world. She hoped that a few extra hours of sleep might dredge the excess of blood pooling up beneath her skin from the violent grabs Smithson had made at her body and her dignity. She wanted to purge herself of the incident, and sleep was a hollow alternative, albeit the only one available to her that would fix the problem of her crashing, ebbing thoughts.

She went back into the billet without catching the attention of any soldiers walking about on the outside, and went straight into her bed, pulling the sheets up and dropping the book beside it without bothering to put it away. She stared emptily, upwards, trying to block out the low conversation that was coming from a huddle of men a few beds away. She closed her eyes, trying to relax when everyone around her was loud and raucous for the weekend.

“Think she’s asleep?” whispered one of the men, which caught June’s attention. She didn’t move, but she listened. There was silence as the men looked over at June, presumably, and judged for themselves if it looked like she had fallen into unconsciousness. Apparently convinced, another voice joined in. 

“She sleeps a lot. Probably knocked out now. Where do you think she went?” said someone, maybe Liebgott. 

“I dunno. Where does she ever go?” said Guarnere. 

The other men made noises of indecision. “I dunno, that bathroom?” said a mystery voice. June guessed it was Sisk – Skinny, the nickname was – because she’d briefly seen him as she came into the billet.

“What bathroom?” said Liebgott.

“You live with her. You don’t wonder where she showers?” said maybe-Skinny back, in disbelief. 

“You’re right,” said Liebgott with a wondering tone. Skinny snorted, and all the other men shushed him. June wanted to laugh suddenly, despite her dislike for the way the men treated her as a novelty. When they weren’t around her when she was awake, the conversations they had with each other seemed strangely casual and mundane. These were sides of the men – their real selves – June only saw glimpses of.

“So, uh… last night,” said Perconte. “Did you hear that outside? The scuffling?” June’s amusement faded away, replaced with cold dread and anticipation. They had heard the sounds.

“Yeah, we did,” said another unfamiliar voice, maybe Christenson. “It kinda sounded like…” he trailed off. June held her breath.

“Like what?” Guarnere said, and June could hear fabric shifting as he probably leaned forward. 

“Never mind,” said Christenson. 

“What is it?” pressed Guarnere. “We wanna know if you heard the same thing we did.”

“It was like two guys fighting,” said Skinny slowly. “But not fighting, you know, like…”

“Like a guy tryna rough up a girl?” offered a new voice – Skip. June almost opened her eyes at that moment. There were too many guys in on this conversation, and they all knew about it. This meant that at least two full billets had heard. It was going back to Sink for sure at this point. Her heart beat faster and faster. June almost choked on her breath.

There was a silence that stretched on for several seconds. “Yeah,” Liebgott said.

Someone _hmm_ -ed, and June heard the flip-click-ping of a lighter. The men weren’t talking, and she wondered what they were waiting for. 

“It had to be someone tryna get at Diedtrich, right?” said Skip. “At least ‘s what me, Malark, and Penk think.”

“What would we even do about it?” asked Guarnere. “Girl wants to be here anyway.” There was the sound of a small slap on fabric and a muttered _ow_ from Guarnere. 

“Ass,” said Perconte. “We just lied there and listened to her getting beat.”

“She looks fine,” said Christenson. Someone snorted. 

“If that’s your definition of _fine_ –”

“She’s not,” said Skip. “She covered it up, but someone grabbed her real hard and socked her in the face.” June recalled him looking at her cheekbone the previous night, strangely concerned.

There was silence, and an idle cough. 

“Ya think anything happened?” said Liebgott. “If… if you know what I mean.” June knew what he meant. Liebgott was asking if she’d been… did. If someone had their way with her. She held her breath.

“Didn’t sound like it,” said Perconte after a beat. “She slugged ‘im back.” June wondered what would have happened if the men did believe it had happened to her. Would they afford her the same consideration as they had the last night, actually seeing if she wasn’t destroyed too badly? Would they be more concerned, and take it to Sink that same night? Or would they treat her like damaged goods: impure, dirty, and ruined? June was lucky Smithson had been drunk and the mystery lieutenant was lurking coincidentally nearby.

“The fact we gotta even talk about this proves my point,” said Guarnere irritatedly, Philly accent so thick June almost had to latch onto his words to understand them. “This ain’t a place for broads. Who even let this woman in?” he said. 

Someone sighed. “Well, it’s not like she’s last at everything. She can run,” said Skip. 

Guarnere made a sound of indignation. “That supposed to mean something? She gonna run from the Germans and that’s gonna save us all?”

June was having increasing trouble pretending to be asleep. Her heart was pounding, and blood rushed in her ears. They acted like June was just a girl who decided to go to the army without knowing what she was getting into. They must have thought her West Point degree was making her arrogant. The anger started to build up in June. They did not know her. They had no right to be postulating the way they were. 

“Well, you gotta be fast,” offered Christenson lamely. Guarnere scoffed. 

“Guys, we’re getting this wrong. She keeps up with the training and she’s never last,” said Skip. “Why is she supposed to be different? Do you want her to be Wonder Woman or something?”

“No,” said Liebgott. “She’s not supposed to be here, period.”

“Why?” pressed Skinny. 

“Why’s she not supposed to be here?” asked Liebgott. “Cause she’s a dame, that’s why. And stuff like last night happens.”

Skinny and Skip both made noises of indignation. “She held her own,” said Skip. 

“Yeah, what happens when she doesn't?” countered Guarnere. “Or, what happens when she gets into it with someone?”

There was a beat, then Perconte spoke. “What do you mean, ‘gets into it’?”

Someone shifted; they shrugged, it sounded like. June felt her face heating with anger and she lay on her back, trying to breathe deep. If anyone insinuated anything deeper, there was nothing June would like to do more than confront them, but she clenched her jaw and locked her muscles down tight and still. 

Controlling herself, like she always had. 

“Like, when she gets caught with someone,” said Guarnere. “It’s gonna happen at some point.”

June fumed silently. She opened her eyes and stared hard at the ceiling, grinding her teeth to prevent herself from making a sound. 

“Probably happened at West Point. Ya hear her? She went to _West Point_. Probably traded favors to get to the top.”

June’s heart dropped and beat faster. Blood rushed in her ears as rage built up in her chest. And then Guarnere said something June couldn’t ignore. 

“Why else would she graduate three years early?”

June didn’t hide it anymore. She looked forward without seeing, sitting up in her bed mechanically and taking deep breaths to steady herself. She felt her hands clenching and grasping in the sheets, and she consciously told herself to relax, relinquishing her hold. But she repeated the words in her head that Guarnere had said: _Three years early_. 

The guilt that June had carried with her for almost a year since she found out West Point was going to push her class out early came to a point and ignited into a tempestuous anger that clouded her mind and emptied it of everything else except for the words of the men. 

_Traded favors_.

_Why else would she graduate three years early?_

June knew everyone was talking about her behind her back. She didn’t know someone had went to the trouble to dig up the newspaper articles and re-read the editorials and reports. The men had passed the paper around, it seemed. It was gossip. June was just another hot topic around camp – just another _object_ of conversation. 

She didn’t exist as a soldier to the other men. She existed as a freakish aberration that dwelt on the periphery of their existence. June was something to laugh at, and something to be made fun of. 

The men had stopped talking. June knew they knew she’d heard. How much, she didn’t know, but June swung her legs over her bed facing away from the men and to the front of the billet. She stood up, still in calm rage, and ignored them. Her back prickled with the stares of everyone in the room, unsaid thoughts buzzing in the air like static, the atmosphere so tense that June wanted to choke. 

She was tired of this. Tired of it all. She took steps towards the exit, not knowing where exactly she’d end up. Currahee, maybe, the place she’d come back from only a few minutes before. Returning was a mistake. 

Maybe this all was a mistake. June knew America wasn’t ready for female soldiers. The men she’d trained with – the men she thought she’d been proving her competence and her athletic ability to – proved that statement ten times over. 

They’d never accept her. Not the way she was. But there was nothing June could do. She was a woman. And there was no way around that fact – no way to change. It was biology that spoke for her. It was uncontrollable. 

She had her hand on the billet door, shaking with bitterness and exasperation and exhaustion. Then a voice broke through her carefully controlled composure. 

“June, I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that,” said Perconte. 

It was like the words broke some paper-thin barrier June had tried to maintain and patch up and paper over every time she’d been offended or wronged or upset at Toccoa. It was a simple attempt at civility. It wasn’t an apology. It was someone trying to maintain the tenuous, insecure peace that existed one sidedly from June towards the other men. No one cared how she felt until she might be upset about someone in particular. They were trying to do damage control, for the first time. Because for the first time, someone seemed to recognize that June was not impervious to the criticism. 

It was uncomfortable for them to see her anything but neutral.

But June felt herself crack. It wasn’t even a _sorry_. 

A _sorry_ wouldn’t have cut it anyway. 

She turned around, eyes on the floor, and she looked up, seeing the faces of her billet and some other men from the company. She let her calmness be covered by rage. It washed over her like a wave, and any attempts to walk out quietly went out of June’s mind. 

They had their time. They had a whole week of it. It was June’s turn. 

“June?” said Perconte again, looking at June with a strange look. 

She felt her brows lower with enmity, and she worked her jaw, looking darkly at the men who were talking about her. 

“What?” she spat at Perconte’s perplexed look. Under any other circumstance, her assertion would have surprised herself. Not this time. The unbridled anger, freed, flowed through her like ichor. “What did you really mean, then?” June turned to look into the eyes of Guarnere, her fingers folding into a fist. She took a step towards the men sitting in the back, chest starting to heave. No one answered, and June just looked at them with a building vicious rage. 

“You think you can pretend like you don’t talk about me behind my back?” June ground out slowly. “Like you don’t make comments about me?” She took another step. “Well, I know. I know about your betting. And I have stayed silent this entire week, letting you all stare at me. And point. And whisper.”

The men looked startled at her outburst. June felt some kind of satisfaction at their surprise, but all other reactions were dulled in the wake of her determination.

“I have taken it this entire week. And I am tired,” June said, letting her voice rise to a volume she’d never thought she’d ever use except when yelling in a group. “I am tired of it. Do you know,” she spat, “What it feels like to be ostracized by an entire camp of men?”

The men shifted uncomfortably, some still wearing disbelieving expressions and some looking torn between confusion and embarrassment, as if they were being chastised. Under another circumstance she would have laughed. Not this time. 

“You will never know,” June said, voice high and ringing, “What it’s like to be pushed off Currahee when no one’s looking. What it’s like to be laughed at when you are not exceptional at everything. You all want to see me wash out.”

She took another step forward. “And when I’m good at only one thing, you get angry at me,” she said, all inhibition gone, shouting now. “You think it’s an offense for me to run better than you!”

Christenson flinched back at the volume of June’s voice. 

June took another step. “And now you have the audacity to imply I sleep around,” she strained. “You imply I gave favors to people to graduate from college?” she said. “Is that what you think of me? Some–” she grasped for words. “Some lowlife woman who got here by offering _sex_?”

Skinny cringed at the last word. June scoffed. _Grow up._ “The only time you feel bad for me is when you actually hear me being–-” she broke off, not able to say it. “You hear me being beat up,” she got out, “and you just lie there and listen?” she said, quieter now. “You would let that happen?”

She stepped closer. “If I was a man, I would have been integrated into the group immediately,” said June. “But I’m not a man, and you can’t do anything about it,” she said. “So if you’re going to talk about me, do it to my face.”

There was silence in the billet. There was no click of lighters or flicks of cards. There was only quiet as all the men looked at June. She didn’t look closely at their expressions – she couldn’t. June lost her temper and lost all chance of repairing any fragile relationships she had left. She had emptied herself. Now her future in itself was doubtful. 

She broke, and it all came rushing back into June. It was a bad decision, she slowly realized

. June had more faith in herself at the beginning of the journey. Now, she felt hollow and strung-out and without hope. 

She lost her self-control, one of her defining traits. She lost it all.

June stared at the floor, trying not to think about the repercussions of her outburst. It all seemed so stupid now – the yelling, the frustration. She had been immature and now it was gone. She should have taken the mutual disdain when she had it. Now she was going to have to withstand hate. And she had once again risked her own goals. Put them on the line just to have some petty fit?

She turned around, the silence pressing in like a deafening sea of static. June pushed out of the billet, like she always did, not able to look at the men anymore. She’d proven them right. She couldn’t handle it. 

June was almost out of the billeting area, aiming for the back of the field, where she’d ended up the other night, when a voice pushed through the chaos of her thoughts. 

“Hey, June,” said someone from behind her. “That you?”

June turned around tiredly. Coates was walking towards June. She took a breath, trying to look a little brighter and push off the heavy mood that had settled over her. Coates noticed her expression, and his brows came together in concern. He was always perceptive, and June cursed herself for being so expressive despite her attempts to try and be less forboding. Coates caught up to her. 

“Hey, Sergeant,” said June, trying for a casual tone. She failed. 

“Something happen, Diedtrich?” asked Coates. June shifted uncomfortably. Both of them started to walk in the direction of a less populated area instinctually. It was never a good idea for either of them to be caught talking to each other for long, and June remembered her words suddenly. Everyone thought she slept around. She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot when they stopped under a few trees. 

“No,” June said, looking at Coates and trying to gauge his expression. She wanted to see whether he’d heard about the events of the previous night. If he had, it would be a good indicator as to whether or not it had gotten back to Sink. 

Coates looked back, still just vaguely concerned. June couldn’t read him at all. 

“You don’t look like nothing happened,” said Coates. “Or is it just the dismal mood of Toccoa?” he said jokingly. June could have cracked a small smile because it was true. She didn’t. “Look, you’re going to have to tell me what happened this week,” said Coates. “You’re still here, so that’s gotta count for something.”

June looked at him. A gust of wind blew the hair away from her face, and she belatedly was reminded of the aching side of her face. She smoothed her hair down suddenly, but Coates noticed something and leaned in almost imperceptibly closer. 

“Someone messing with you. Private?” asked Coates suddenly, leaning around June to get a better look at her face. 

“No,” she lied, leaning away and turning her head. “I hit my face on something,” she muttered. 

Coates didn’t believe her. He raised an eyebrow. June resolutely shut her mouth and kicked at the dirt with the toe of her boot.

“Fine, you hit your face,” said Coates in disbelief. “You’re not going to tell me.”

“He looks worse,” murmured June quietly. Coates looked mortified for a few seconds, and then laughed. June didn’t laugh. Internally, something lifted slightly. Coates’s perpetually pleasant mood was almost contagious. Coates then sobered, putting a respectable face on once more. 

“Look, I know you don’t want to tell me what happened, but I know you didn’t start it,” he said. “You’re going to have to be proactive about not letting this happen again.” June opened her mouth in protest, and Coates held up a hand to stop her before she spoke. “I know it’s not fair. But it’s the only way,” he said. “Make sure you’re not alone.”

June took a deep breath and released it, trying to banish the memories with it. It did nothing of the sort, and June stared at the ground uncomfortably.

June couldn’t have disagreed more. Being alone was her only escape from the men in her billet. Men who she had probably angered beyond all recovery. But she ground her teeth and nodded, and Coates rolled his eyes, not disrespectfully, but in a way where it seemed like he understood June. 

She wasn’t sure how they had bonded so fast, considering they’d only seen each other for short amounts of time, each for only a few minutes except for the first day. But she dwelt in the presence of an almost-friendship while she could – a welcome reprieve from the edgy silence of her everyday routine. It was nice to talk. To use her vocal chords for anything other than _yes, sir_ or _no excuse, sir_.

June looked at Coates, and considered telling him about her explosion. She didn’t want to say any details, but she desperately needed to spill her feelings out in front of anyone who would listen – she would normally do it with James, but that was not an option other than to mail him a letter admitting how bad Toccoa had been. She decided she didn’t want to hold back anymore. What was the worst-case scenario? Coates would reprimand her? She took a risk and started to speak. 

“I–” she started, not knowing how to put the words together. Coates looked down at her expectantly. “I might have… said some things I shouldn’t have to the men in my company,” June admitted slowly, not looking at Coates. “I told them that I didn’t like the exclusion, but I think I just ruined any chance at, uh…” she trailed off. “Civility.” She cringed at the words, and did not meet Coates’s eyes. Out in the open, out of her mind, they felt too blunt – too dramatic. She almost regretted saying it at all, and the silence between then went on. She almost considered taking it back with a _sorry, it’s not that bad, I shouldn’t have bothered you_. But Coates responded. 

“Diedtrich, no one has done this before,” said Coates. “They’re not being nice because they don’t understand. Normally, I’d say it’s their fault. But this is the military. There’s no room for broken communication,” he said. “On the field, you have to say what you need to say. Don’t feel bad for talking.”

June nodded. 

“Relationships are a two-way street,” said Coates. “If you don’t talk to them like people, they won’t treat you as a person, regardless of gender.” 

She looked at him, confused. 

“Have you ever considered that they might think you’re arrogant?”

June almost wanted to say something back in retaliation, belligerence automatically rising in her. It was like a slap in the face – a bucket of cold water thrown over her head. She felt attacked, and opened her mouth to say something else, and Coates looked at her with a loaded expression that said, _think about it_.

June looked down at the dirt, picking at her sleeve. She thought about it. She never talked to the other men except when talked to. She ignored everyone else because they ignored her. 

Were they ignoring her because she was ignoring them? 

“Maybe,” she admitted. “Never thought about it like that.”

“You knew this wasn't going to be easy,” said Coates in response. “It’ll get better.”

June sincerely hoped it would get better. 

“Try your best,” said Coates, moving to walk away. “You’ll be fine.”

June watched him retreat, thinking _that’s easy for him to say_ , wondering what exactly she’d do next. June most definitely did not feel fine. The idea of going back to the billet was not fine. And most of all, she’d put her own fate in the balance. 

June wondered when she’d go back to feeling fine. 

She has a feeling that it would not happen for a long time. There were other more important things to be felt. The darkness of dusk shone menacingly on the horizon, and June watched Coates disappear into the orange of the western sky. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I did some heavy editing so it's up to present-me standards, because I've written so much since this chapter that I felt that the diction and structure was lacking in a lot of places. 
> 
> I know I've been absent, and it was never my goal to ever have a break in posting. Life will always be unexpected, though, and I am trying to learn how to swim with the tide and take challenges as they are thrown at me. 
> 
> Even if it takes years, I will finish June's story. It might take a little longer than I originally planned, though. 
> 
> Thank you all for your kind comments. They give me encouragement!
> 
> Finally, I hope you all are having a good week. The holidays are coming up, and I hope you all have a safe and COVID-free season.


	11. Avoidance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever transpired has changed the dynamic of the company now, for better or for worse.

June walked back late that day again. She sat for empty hours in the border of the forest, up on Currahee, and wandering around the edges of the camp, alone and conflicted. Talking to Coates had helped her mood slightly, but June didn’t feel good about any of its implications. She was angry. Remorseful, too, in a conflicting spin of mixing emotions. She didn’t mean to explode. She hadn’t planned on abandoning self-control, and now she felt like an angry and impulsive child. Petulant. How she appeared was probably a more dire matter entirely.

When it was time to eat, June sat quietly in her usual corner, trying not to attract attention. Someone said something to her, probably something meant to tear her down further, but she didn’t take much notice. It was like throwing a pebble into a pond – the ripples spread and dissipated, and June sank deeper into her mostly self-inflicted maelstrom of thoughts without regard to the disturbance. Desensitization was beginning to take effect, or maybe June was simply growing a thicker skin than before. Either way, she was in no condition to take heed or care. 

When June washed her face under the dim bathroom lights, watching the foundation dissolve and stream through the gaps in her fingers like milk, the bruise looked twice as worse as that morning. The blood under her skin had shifted and pooled inside her orbital bone and around her cheekbone, and a dark mottled ring took up a substantial section of her face. It was almost like dirt, and June prodded roughly at the bruise with venom, wishing it wasn’t there at all for the thousandth time that day. She checked the vaguely hand-shaped bruise on her upper arm and the one on her shoulder – they were dark purple but didn’t feel too sore. At least the swelling on her face had gone down with time, and she rinsed her face with cold water again, like it would wash away what was ingrained below her skin. If only there was a way to vacuum away all of that blood that sat underneath – suck it up and pretend nothing had ever happened. 

June straightened, face dripping, and suddenly experienced the urge to lash out at the mirror – throw something or hit at the sink. She didn’t, and the only evidence of such a thought from the outward observer would have been her strangled growl. It was a feeling of helplessness, or maybe overwhelming shame. June felt herself slipping into the darkness. She clenched her fist against the sink. 

She did not look like herself in the reflection of that mirror. Who stared back was a woman who looked like they’d been through the wringer. It disturbed June. She sighed, straightened, and covered the injured side of her face with her hand. She was only slightly better from this angle: what she felt was a deepening sense of something building deep within, and it showed in the dark, stressed circles under her eyes and the way she stared unflinchingly at the reflection, drops of water clinging to the strands of hair around her face, 

She’d go into the billet and act normal. Before she tried to be nice and attempt to repair anything, she’d let it sit for a couple of days. 

June tried to tell herself that she wanted to wait not because it was easy, but because it was right. Was it too easy to just let the doubling rift go unbridged? Was it wrong _because_ it was easy?

When June ran back to the billet in the dark, she tried to shake the feeling of being followed. It was paranoia that plagued her now as a product of the other night. She tried to reason with herself as she jogged towards the Easy billets. No one was following her. It was before lights-out, anyway, and the figures that blurred past June were soldiers in groups, conversing and walking normally. No one lurking. No one creeping in the shadows. And anyone with intention to harm could not possibly do so until she was alone and defenseless.

Even with the absence of sun, June was still sweating a smidge in the Georgia heat. The ground radiated heat absorbed hours earlier in the day, and June pulled at her shirt, trying to stimulate airflow below her collar. The billet was near, and she tried not to think about Smithson, and how he might be waiting for her in a shadowy slice of starless night, waiting for vengeance. 

She thought of the punch she landed to his neck and tried to tell herself he was out of commission for the time being, and she shivered despite the warmth, climbing the steps of the billet. She willingly traded the tense awkwardness and possible hatred of a half-platoon of men for the deep dark of the hidden figures of night. She would take the smoky air and darting eyes over the unpredictable outdoors.

Like a hundred times before, everyone looked up when June entered the billet. Like all times before, she endured the silence and sat down on her cot without looking at anyone in particular. Like every other time, she minded her own business, doing things with her hands until the room went back to whatever it was doing. 

Somehow she drifted off to sleep, feeling lost – drifting in the dark sea, directionless and floundering. 

♤

“You think it’s that bad?” 

There was a quiet _hmm_ sound of indecision. “Looks like it.”

“It’s really… purple,” came a responding whisper. There was a sound of a sharp exhale and then someone laughed from somewhere in the distance. 

“No shit, Sherlock.” A brief breath of laughter. “Did you know that the sky is also blue?” 

“Shut up, Malark.” It was accompanied by a dull slap. 

“Ow,” he cried, suddenly and unintentionally louder than the preceding whispers.

 _Shhhhh_ , two others hissed, but it was too late. 

June fully awoke, and before she collected her thoughts and focused completely on her surroundings, three faces swam into focus, immediate and startlingly close. She let out a short startled shriek, and her first thought was _too close_. In an effort to get away from them before really realizing what was happening, June scooted away and felt the edge of the bed under her. Gravity took hold and she fell off the side onto the floor with a resounding thump.

Her eyes darted wildly in confusion. Malarkey, Skip, and Penkala stared back at her with awkward expressions of concern. Penkala made an aborted move towards June, and she shot backwards in reaction, hitting the back of her head on the billet wall with a wince and a hollow boom. The three above reacted simultaneously with a cringe.

June realized that he was probably offering a hand for her to get up. She rubbed at her eyes and swiped at the rest of her face briefly, and then looked back at the three, who were shifting uncomfortably. Belatedly, a feeling of being strangely exposed overcame her, even though they’d seen her in PT gear all week. This was the closest someone else voluntarily got to her, apart from Sobel’s intentional crowding and the few times anyone had impersonally offered her a hand.

“What is it?” said June nervously from her place on the floor. The thin sheets from her bed were half in her lap and half hanging off the bed. She rubbed at her cheekbone, which was still sore, and leaned back into the billet wall with a thump. She was tired, but she forced herself to look up at the men and wait for whatever they were going to say. There was maybe a smidge of dignity left to preserve. Coates had told her to try. She had to make some effort to be receptive.

“Well, your face,” started Skip, and Penkala elbowed him in the ribs. 

“My face?” echoed June dumbly after a long pause, slightly shocked at the surreal feeling of having something resembling a normal conversation for the first time in the billet. “What about it?” she asked. She absently touched at the bruise again, conscious that it was on full display. She wanted to hide it, but she left her hair alone, electing to turn away slightly instead. It wasn’t as obvious. 

The men must have had mistaken her phrasing for offense, and they looked at each other, at a loss. 

“Uh… don’t be upset,” said Skip slowly, and he stopped mid sentence, looking lost. “I mean, I’m not saying you would be…” he trailed off. Penkala looked at him. 

Malarkey sighed. “I know you don’t want to tell us, but if someone really attacked you like that, we want to know who did it.”

June was confused. She felt her mind automatically grasping at malicious accusations, but she forced her thoughts back on the less assumptive track with considerable effort. June stared at the ground between her sprawled-out legs, trying to pin down a coherent thought. 

Malarkey wasn’t done. 

“Was it, uh, Smithson?” 

June looked up at him suddenly, a shiver running down her spine that she tried not to show. Malarkey twitched, uncharacteristically, under the force of her look. She was on the floor and he was standing over her, so it should have been the other way around.

“You popped him, right?” he said, looking pointedly at the busted knuckles on June’s right hand, which was laying atop one thigh. She looked hard at her hand, like she could turn back time and make more of an effort to hide it. It twinged painfully, like a reminder of the few moments of fury where she’d blindly hit out with her fist. It was no matter now, and she looked back at Malarkey, flexing her fingers. 

“So what if I popped him?” said June with a sudden surge of defensiveness. “Gonna report me for fighting?” She had surprised herself with the intensity of her own statement, and immediately regretted the snark. She almost went to cover her own mouth, like what her mother had tried to pound into her when she was little – something respectful and womanly – but June resolutely fell silent, not wanting to do any more damage.

Malarkey actually stepped back in shock, looking like he was actually reconsidering what he was about to say. 

“Of course not,” said Skip, blinking rapidly. “It’s just, uh…”

June raised an eyebrow, retracting her legs and shoving her hands between her knees, hiding the bruised tissue. 

“We assumed because Tipper found Smithson,” said Penkala haltingly. “He saw this big bruise on his neck, like really big.”

June suddenly had a vivid memory of Smith’s rattling breath as he crouched on his hands and knees, forcing air in and out of his lungs. She shrank further into herself, pulling her knees up as she sat on the wooden slats. The dark night pressed in despite the bright daylight streaming in through the windows, and she was taken back to the desperation, the fear, and his hot breath all over her face as she pushed and clawed to get away from this night terror of man– 

“–June?” 

She forced her eyes to focus and looked up abruptly. “What?”

“It’s Smithson, right?” said Skip. 

June was at a loss with what to respond with. “Can’t say,” she said hollowly, with anger just beyond her reach now. She pressed herself farther into the wall, away from the men. 

“Did you not see the person?” asked Skip. “You must have, right?”

“I can’t say,” said June again quietly, voice cracking slightly. She looked hard at the floor, willing a hole to open up and swallow her right there and then. The compounded attention from all three and their unclear agenda was making June’s heartbeat pick up. 

“Can’t or won’t?” said Malarkey, a strange frustration playing across his face. “Why? Are you trying to protect him or something? We can get him thrown out. He won’t bother you again,” he said suddenly.

“We’ll take it to Winters, who can probably skip Sobel,” said Penkala lightly, as if that would fix the problem.

Blood drained out of June’s face. “No, no, you can’t do that,” she said hastily, feeling a shot of energy traveling through her body at the thought. She picked up the sheets abruptly and threw them back onto the bed, hefting herself up onto her feet, barely aware that she was still in PT gear and nothing else. “No, you can’t,” she repeated, looking haltingly over the men’s shoulders and craning to take stock of the other men in the room, trying to pick out the men who were absent. She started composing a list in her head of the people who would most likely try to use this to force her out of the billet.

It was the weekend. A lot of beds were empty. June wracked her mind, trying to remember who had been there for her rant and who might have been sent to go to HQ and find Winters. June absentmindedly armed her way between Skip and Penkala, who both moved back in surprise. June surveyed the room with a wildly beating heart and chaotic, panicked thoughts. 

If it got to HQ now, it was over. June had somehow survived these few hours without anyone knowing, despite alleged billets-full of men apparently hearing the commotion outside during the night hours. She’d preserved her place at camp this far; she would try to save it while she could. There was time.

Stupid. The first possibly considerate gesture of the men of her company was going to result in her being washed-out against her will. Without camp, June’s prospective Army career would be over before it even started. She would have wasted an entire week of pain and practice for nothing. 

Stupid. So very tragic. June put her head in her hands and exhaled forcefully.

“Hey. Hey,” said Malarkey, slightly more gentle, hovering uncomfortably, speaking more like he was approaching a crying woman on the street. “Calm down. What’s wrong?” he said, as June walked up and down the length of the billet, probably more anxious and distressed than anyone had ever seen her before. It was a whole new side that people rarely saw, but she didn’t have the time nor the energy to worry about maintaining appearances while someone might have been out spilling her career-ending secrets as she slept. She looked back at the three who had been speaking to her, and they seemed startled at her sudden display of paranoid fear. 

Malarkey hovered a few feet away, and Skip and Penkala looked at each other with the same unreadable expression.

“Did you send someone?” said June anxiously to the three, rounding on them suddenly. They exchanged glances with one another. “To find Winters?” June prompted impatiently. 

“No,” all three said at the same time. June blew out a huge sigh of relief and sat back onto her bed, sinking down and staring hard at nothing. On the other side of the room, at the perceived receiving end of June’s glare, Skinny shifted uncomfortably. 

“Where’s Smithson?” demanded June, not looking at anyone, staring at the ground. When no one answered, she looked up, raising an eyebrow at the men gathered loosely around her bed. 

“I don’t know, around camp?” offered Hanson hesitantly from a small distance away. “I don’t think he’s off-base.”

June would have stopped to marvel at the situation – the men were finally talking to her normally, for some reason – but she sat on the bed, breathing in relief and exhaling panic. 

“You did sock him good,” came a voice after a few beats of silence. “Guy’s neck was worse than your face.” Someone must have aimed a hard stare at Tipper when June didn’t look up, and there was a quiet huff and a “what?” from Tipper again.

June rubbed at her eyes, trying to take stock of the damage. 

Tipper had spotted Smithson and his huge throat bruise that June had apparently given him. The billet had apparently collectively decided to feel bad for June’s incident. They offered to get him out for her and report Smithson to Winters. They thought that reporting the incident would turn out better for June. 

Wait – did they really? Were they smarter than June realized, and they were going to leverage the situation to get her out? A new, familiar feeling of suspicion pushed on the edges of her consciousness.

She ran a hand through her hair and sat back up, eyeing Tipper. He looked somewhere else. 

“Why can’t we do something about it?” asked Penkala from behind June. She turned around, searching his face for malicious intent and came away less tense. He noticed her probing gaze and leaned back fractionally. “Yesterday you got scary-mad and now you don’t want us to be nice,” he said with a surprising degree of casual candor. June suddenly was very nervous at the mention of her previous outburst, and she cringed, not wanting to be reminded. 

“You can’t tell anyone,” she said quietly, feeling heat rise in her face. She was mortified that the men even wanted to do anything about the situation. It was bad enough that they were talking to her about it. They were talking to each other about it. How much attention could this have stirred up at camp for the men to actually confer behind her back and plan something like this? Agreeing to go to a CO in itself required a tremendous amount of discussion. The idea made her feel vaguely sick. 

“He’ll be gone and you won’t have to think about it,” pressed Penkala. June wanted to hide in a dark corner and run out of the billet simultaneously. They didn’t understand, just like she’d expected. None of them understood anything. Subtlety was not something common in men, June thought. She had thought all throughout her time in school, with her family, and at West Point that men would miraculously change when they became adults. She looked at Penkala with a tired, disappointed look. He closed his mouth and looked back, confused. They wouldn’t understand unless she gave them a reason. They were just too stuck in their own ill-advised concept of a do-good agenda.

June would have to spell it out for them. 

She cleared her throat, looking around vaguely at the people in the billet. “You can’t let this get out of the billet. You can’t tell anyone.” She exhaled into her hands, adding an uncharacteristic supplication, not without hesitance. “Please.” She looked up at the ceiling, feeling beyond uncomfortable. “Not the officers. Not even Lieutenant Winters.”

Someone made a scoff of indignation. June looked around the room. Guarnere was notably absent, and there were a few men from other platoons around. Some, she didn’t even know their names, and June was suddenly slightly more uncomfortable than before, if it was possible. 

The entire situation was overwhelmingly odd. The men looked at her, not through her. It was strange what a week could do to a person, June thought. It was almost like they acknowledged her as a human in their midst with this weirdly sudden and badly thought-out olive branch. 

They couldn’t possibly feel bad for her… right?

Pity. It was pity. Something, she reminded herself, that she did not need from anyone. Especially not from Easy Company, the company led by Herbert Sobel. 

“You don’t get it,” she suddenly spat. A small part of her thought to be embarrassed at her sudden mood swing, but the majority of her mind rushed to anger. To frustration. They would never understand, and the only way to make this go _her_ way was to lay it all out for them to see.

“Everything leads back to me,” June started, talking to the floor. “Everything. Including this – this thing with _him_. With Smithson.”

She paused, waiting for someone to interrupt. No one did.

“I am responsible for all things that happen to me. If this gets out, I am out.” She paused. “If you want me out of here, do it now. I’ll be washed out against my will on an accusation of being too weak. Or being a distraction.”

There was a long silence that stretched on for longer than usual. June risked a glance up and realized with increasing discomfort – if there was a threshold for discomfort, she had risen above it. She nervously started to bounce her leg up and down, aborting her nervous looks and staring hard at the floor. She kneaded her fingers together in her lap, pinching and pulling. 

June wanted to add something, maybe like repeating _If you want me out, do it now._ But the silence had become so thick June was afraid of breaking it. The soundless air settled heavily over the billet as noises from the outside filtered feebly through the windows. The dull _thwack_ of a baseball bat. Some unintelligible yells. Slamming billet doors, reedy and hollow. 

She stopped bouncing her leg and just pulled at her fingers more vigorously. Floorboards creaked as men shifted their weight, and June wondered who was at the billet out of actual pity, and who was there to witness the theatrics. Finally, a flick of a lighter and the barely-audible sizzle of a lighted cigarette. A quiet murmur of someone else asking to borrow the lighter. 

“Who made that the rules?” came a voice from the back, and June’s expectant anger dissipated, replaced with surprise. June shifted to turn around and see who the speaker was, and she was met with the view of a man she barely knew. She’d heard his name once, twice, maybe? Even then, it was probably a nickname. Something to do with a big animal– 

“I’m Bull,” he said, in a slightly twangy voice. “ ‘Case you didn’t know.”

June almost managed to take the introduction in stride and voice an _oh_. Then she realized he’d asked a question. 

“Just how it is if I’m here. Can’t change it,” June said scratchily, attempting to lighten her voice. 

Bull seemed to mull this over, and June pulled at her fingers again. 

“Well, I guess we’re not tellin’ anyone,” said Martin from next to Bull, and most of the men shrugged or nodded briefly. 

June didn’t know whether to thank them or cover herself in sheets and never come out again. They actually didn’t take this chance to get her out of the billets. June would take what she got, at least for now. The gravity of the situation seemed to be dramatically lightened with the way she took the statement. None of the others seemed strongly opposed. She took it as a good sign, and shrugged. 

Malarkey shot June a concerned look, and she tried to ignore it. The day was a strange day – a day of firsts. June finally gave in to her impulse and excused herself from the billet, shooting the men a small hesitant smile as she rose, the silence in the billet intensifying as the only sounds were her socked feet walking across the slats. She collected her clothing, putting on her uniform hastily, and laced her boots loosely. She left a few seconds later.

♤

June’s instinct after brushing her teeth and patting makeup futilely over her purpling bruise was to take a walk around the compound. She’d never gone around the entire thing, and she felt too exhausted from attention to go to the mess hall. She wasn’t hungry – the anxiety of her last close call had nixed whatever hunger had been gnawing at her.

She approached the HQ area with a fair amount of uneasiness, but her goal was to skitter across the main thoroughfare before anyone of import spotted her. No one tended to go out of their way to bother her, but June was nevertheless cautious whenever she came to the front of the camp. It was where Sink was most of the time. She hadn’t seen Sink since her first day on that last Friday, and she didn’t plan to see him anytime soon, either. 

She was about to enter a small copse of trees to the relative west of the camp, attempting to circle around on a small trail behind most of the HQ buildings, and surface somewhere near the mailroom to check if she’d gotten anything back from her family, her friends, or maybe even Everett. 

There was a pair of men walking down the way toward June, and she ignored them, thinking they were going to skirt past her and continue without affording her another glance. Unfortunately, June paused and turned her head for a few seconds and recognized one of the nearing figures as none other than Richard Winters, her Lieutenant. Her stomach dropped with disappointed nervousness. The sight of him sent her into panic, just thinking about how lucky she’d been to have been attacked away from the officers’ billet area.

She stopped and waited for them to get closer until they noticed her, and then the other figure grew more familiar in June’s eyes. She squinted slightly until he was in view. He was taller than Winters – dark-haired, dark-eyed, and straight-spined. She’d seen him before: maybe around camp? She wasn’t sure. 

June straightened and begrudgingly stopped by the side of the path, saluting, to acknowledge the seniority of the two passing officers. Winters noticed her and nodded. June gave him a nod back. The other man didn’t smile, his eyes sweeping over June, lingering strangely on the side of her face before staring straight ahead once again. It was like he saw through her, and June leaned subtly to the right, conscious that the only thing hiding her bruise from view was makeup and her hair. She looked closely at Winter’s face apprehensively, scanning for any concern or hints that he was also looking for a bruise. June had a hard time completely believing the enlisted men when they promised no one had gone to Winters.

“Private,” said Winters. June looked at him anxiously. “How’s the foot?” 

June let out a silent breath of relief, hoping her careful tenseness wasn’t as palpable as she thought it might be. 

“It’s fine, sir, thank you,” she said. The other officer shifted a bit, eyes going back to the exact place on June’s face where the bruise was. She told herself she was just imagining it, until–

“Have we met before, Private?” said the man suddenly, and June finally placed the officer when she heard his voice. The lieutenant looked at her expectantly, and Winters cast a glance between him and June, looking thankfully oblivious to whatever recognition that had passed between them. 

Was this a test by the officer, or maybe both? Testing her honesty? Would this require a lie to be told? In front of Winters, no less? June’s eyes darted towards Winters, a guilty feeling settling deep in her. Something about him made her unfathomably insecure about lying to his face. “I can’t say, sir,” responded June, feeling automatically guilty. It was the most honest response she could have dredged up at that moment, walking the line of truthfulness and safety.

To June’s relief, the lieutenant’s expression did not change from the same stoic one – a slight frown, brows casting a heavy shadow over his face. “Lieutenant Speirs. Baker Company,” he said, extending a hand for June to shake. She took it, and his grip wasn’t overly strong, to her surprise. He gave it one pump and let go, and his eyes brushed over her cheekbone again. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Private,” said Speirs. 

June didn’t miss the implication that she was a talked-about subject. She flashed her best respectful acknowledging smile and tried not to look too unsettled by Speirs’s darkly enigmatic aura, even in broad daylight. Winters seemed to take this as a concluding gesture and started to walk away without a comment about June’s incident, which only communicated to her that no one had told him, including Speirs. Winters did not seem like the kind of man to withhold information to use as blackmail later. 

Speirs followed soon after without any acknowledgement of what happened the other night. June watched them walk away in the distance, talking to each other calmly. 

Winters really didn’t know, it seemed. June didn’t know how to take that information. It seemed the men in her billet were at least decently trustworthy after all.

♤

The mailroom was more crowded than June would have liked it to be. She made a mental note not to come to the area on weekend mornings, because men were constantly stepping in and out of the building. Correspondence seemed to be a universally practiced pastime at the camp. June watched a particular soldier abscond from the office with an armful of at least a dozen letters. It was apparently a productive pastime, too. 

June ignored the men already looking at her, and approached the front counter, looking for the postmaster that had taken her mail a week prior. The room was stuffed with a circulating tide of soldier trainees, each clamoring for their mail and pawing through stacks of twined-together envelopes. June dodged elbows and ducked under arms, shoving past a few men until she got to the front. It was how most things went at Toccoa, anyway: graceless, sweaty, and chaotic.

She caught a glance at the man behind the desk, crouching underneath the counter. He was fishing for something in the shelves below, and June waited patiently for him to resurface. What was his name again? June sorted through files and files of names in her mind. It turned out she didn’t need to.

“Vest!” yelled someone from close to June’s ear, and she jerked back, turning around slightly to perceive the speaker. “Got mail for me?”

Without even looking up at the guy, Vest yelled back from below. “Sorry, Ryan! Not yet,” he said, his voice muffled. He came back up with a block of mail that he dropped on the wooden counter with a large thump. He undid the string and started pulling stacks of letters from the pile and setting them out in organized sections.

“Whoah, you the broad?” came the same voice from behind June – Ryan. She looked at his patches, or lack thereof. Private. An equal, rank-wise.

“Yeah, I am,” said June briefly before turning back to Vest, hoping Ryan wasn’t going to keep harassing her. All the other men in the depot seemed to finally notice she was there too, now, after Ryan’s comment, and the dull roar of the crown tapered off into a more manageable noise level. She fingered the corner of a piece of paper hanging off the counter. Vest suddenly looked up at the sound of her voice, finally noticing her. 

“Oh, hi, Diedtrich,” he said, breathlessly. “Whaddya want?” He ran a hand through his hair, looking slightly disoriented. A man tugged at the mail stacks on the other side of the counter, and Vest briefly broke eye contact to slap the guy’s hand away, muttering that he didn’t have mail for him, either. 

June looked at him with a slight attempt at a friendly smile. “Just… my mail,” she said, not knowing what else she’d be at the depot for. Vest nodded. 

“Dunno why I asked. That was a dumb question,” he said, voice traveling as he leaned down and dragged a finger along an alphabetized inventory. “Diedtrich,” he mumbled, tapping a slot, and resurfacing with a few envelopes. “Here ya go.”

“Thanks,” said June, riffling through the letters, looking through the addresses and already backing away from the counter, holding her mail close. She almost hit the guy behind her as she turned around. It was the same one from before. 

“Hey,” he said. June looked over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of Ryan following her out of the mailroom, and she pushed her way out, turning back around once she was down the steps and into the dirt. “Hey, any relation to Marlene?” 

June turned around, looking at Ryan briefly before counting her envelopes again. There were only four, but June wasn’t too concerned. The others would mail back soon, probably. 

“That supposed to be an original pick-up line?” asked June absentmindedly, trying to exude as much disinterest as possible. “I’ve heard it all already.”

“I actually wanted to know,” said Ryan from behind her, and she heard him jogging to catch up with her. “Kinda look like her.”

June barked a short laugh. “I’m not. Different spelling,” June said without looking back at him. “And I do not look like her.”

“Oh,” came a disappointed reply. A pause. “Skip wanted to know, but he didn’t wanna ask,” he continued, sounding as if he was acting overly familiar to June. Apparently people around June knew each other, but she didn’t know about the network that was building all around her. She was again reminded that people talked about her all the time, and it was not a good feeling. She was always shut out. Men wanted to hear about her business and it made her feel like her secrets were out in the world. 

That caught June’s attention, and she looked back at Ryan with suspicion. “Do you have nothing else to talk about?” she shot back, feeling safer about being accused of rudeness if Ryan wasn’t someone she saw all the time. “You’re not Easy Company, either. How would you even know Skip?”

“Oh, I’m in How Company,” said Ryan nonchalantly, seemingly unaffected by June’s terse response. “I hang around Skip and Malarkey sometimes.”

June kept walking towards the billet area, thoughts of a walk abandoned now that Ryan was trailing after her. He didn’t seem predatory, like Smithson– he seemed more like a curious kid, albeit kind of annoying and without nuance. She risked a backward glance at Ryan, and he was still following her. June made a deliberate turn into the barracks, aiming to send the message she wasn’t interested. 

June was suddenly struck by the thought that Ryan reminded her of her brother. They were probably around the same age, too. Ryan looked maybe even younger than June. 

“So, uh–” Ryan started again from behind June. “I hear you’re a fast runner.”

June sighed to herself, jamming a finger under the flap of the first envelope and ripping the top open. Ryan seemed like a friendly person, but he was persistent. June didn’t want anyone else hitting on her, especially after what happened with Luz, and the potential for hostility from rejected men. She knew from experience that it could get bad fast. 

“Hmm. Skip tell you that?” June asked, injecting a fair amount of disinterest into her tone, hoping it would send a message for Ryan to go away. 

“No, actually, Malarkey,” said Ryan, finally catching up to June. She looked up for a second and went back to pulling her mail out of its envelope. This one was from Florence. She felt Ryan looking at her letter over her shoulder and she slid it back into the envelope. 

They were already at her billet, and she stopped walking. Ryan stopped beside her. 

“Got nothing to do, Ryan?” said June, finally facing him. “I’m not hooking up with you, if that’s what you want,” she said flatly. 

Ryan looked like he had nothing to say at her sudden brash tone. He had the sense to look faintly embarrassed. “I wasn’t–”

“ ‘Preciate your company back to my billet,” said June, trying to sound brief and dismissive without telling him in stronger words. “Have a nice day, Ryan.”

Ryan looked taken aback, and June didn’t know what, exactly, he was expecting. She suddenly felt bad for trying to cut off their conversation. He wasn’t exactly being creepy, June thought. 

They stood there, each not knowing what to say. June gave an awkward nod, and started to turn to the billet steps, hoping Ryan would leave and that she’d never have to talk to him again. His look of strange rejection was making her feel guilty.

“Hey, James!” came a yell from down the path, and both June and Ryan looked up to see Skip, Malarkey, and Perconte coming down the path towards them. Ryan brightened. June huffed out a sigh, bracing for some more invasive comments or a sudden cold shoulder – both of which were opposite extremes, but the only things the men were capable of doing, for some reason. 

“Diedtrich,” nodded Malarkey, strangely formal compared to the way he greeted anyone else. June shifted on her feet, shuffling her mail from hand to hand. 

“June,” she muttered under her breath. She was trying. 

“What?” said Perconte, leaning towards her. 

“Call me June,” she said, less quiet. “People who know me don’t... normally go by last name.”

Skip, Malarkey, and Perconte gave each other a meaningful look, and June knew she was acting out-of-character. It was a start. 

“Sure, June,” said Skip happily. Hearing her own name come from Skip’s mouth was a foreign feeling indeed. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. “You meet James?” 

June looked at Ryan. “Yeah, we met at the post office,” said Ryan. The three Easy men looked down at June’s mail, then back at Ryan. James – that was June’s brother’s name. The universe decided to make it hard for her that day. June tried unsuccessfully to separate the image of her brother from this new acquaintance.

“You got anything?” said Malarkey to Ryan. 

“No, nothing back yet,” said Ryan. Skip _hmm_ -ed.

“Well, you wanna come in?” said Malarkey to Ryan, nodding at the billet. “We could use someone else for a game of poker.”

“Sure,” said Ryan, already following the three up the steps into the Easy billet. June watched them go inside. It would be awkward for her to suddenly leave after encountering all of them, so she followed them, too, feeling strangely like a newly invited inductee hovering on the outskirts of a group of well-connected friends. 

She’d been in the billet for a week, and she watched Ryan walk inside for the first time and be acknowledged with barely any special attention. She, on the other hand, still got lingering stares whenever she came in and out. 

June held onto some hope that her relationship to the men would change some time in the future. But for the moment, she made the best of her situation. It was the best she’d ever been treated thus far. She intended to make the best of it and take it while it was still there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, hey! I'm back (temporarily). I hope this chapter was satisfying because it definitely cuts some of the doom and gloom and starts June on the path of familiarity :)
> 
> Also  
> Did you know Fritz Niland (Private Ryan’s historical counterpart) was close personal friends with Malarkey and Skip??? I didn’t, but it was something amazingly convenient and actually very cool. 
> 
> I additionally changed some inconsistencies about rank insignia. Back in the WWII era, privates did not receive a single chevron; they had nothing. I edited chapter 2 to take care of this and I also offhandedly mention a lack of patches in this chapter.


End file.
